French fried vs. French fry
Roger Funkhauser wrote
to me at wordmall@aol.com and asked. “Is
it more proper to use ‘ice tea’ instead of ‘iced tea’ or doesn’t it make a
difference?"
It should definitely be
iced tea. It has to be the past participle form. Ice tea would be made from
ice. Iced tea is tea that has been iced. The past participle form emphasizes something that has
been _______. That said, since d and t are dentals (formed by
touching the tongue against the back of the teeth), elision quite naturally
takes place, so it sounds like ice
tea. The mistake has been compounded by the popular rapper Ice-T, formerly
known as Tracy Lauren Marrow.
Here are some other
misspelled past participle forms:
MISTAKE SHOULD BE
shell peas shelled peas
ice beer iced beer
an occupy seat an occupied seat
husk corn husked corn
mask man masked man
french fry potatoes french
fried potatoes
checker past checkered past
unleash dog unleashed dog
block punt blocked punt
broke faucet broken faucet
froze food frozen food
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