Thursday, November 05, 2015

I feel as if I'm holding on to the edge of life by my fingernails, but still, here I am. I had a very happy half-hour at Kathy's Knits yesterday and finished (without mishap) another pattern repeat on the hat. At home, I polished off the fifth Dunfallandy triangle, also without mishap. Today, perhaps, the v-neck vest.

Mailing the Dunfallandy picture to myself from the iPad doesn't seem to be working this morning.

I hope to have a serious look at Woolly Wormhead's KAL hat today, too. It will have to be the Dunfallandy yarn, I probably have too much, I usually do, and if not, it came from Loop and isn't dye-lot-conscious, so it can be replaced.

Here's a linguistic titbit for you. Kathy is being helped for a few days by a delightful young German woman, here in Edinburgh to improve her English which seems fine to me, and doing “work experience” in the shop. She was looking at a book in a quiet moment and was surprised to discover “knit” as the past tense of “knit”.

Kathy agreed that “knitted” was commoner. But there was an American customer in the shop at the time -- she and I agreed that we would be more likely to say “I knit that hat last year”.

I'll try Webster's International and the shorter OED today.

Mary Lou, I didn't mean to imply that culling the Shetland yarn would mean giving up Fair Isle knitting. Au contraire. It means more room for Jamieson & Smith's Shetland Heritage yarns. Gosia will be coming tomorrow. We've got to get the spare room ready for people who are coming the following weekend for my husband's birthday. It's a tip at the moment – “Archie's room” plus everything there isn't a place for elsewhere.


But she and I ought to have time to make a start on the stash cupboard.

15 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:13 PM

    I am so curious what wonders may be in the stash cupboard!
    I think I may have said "I knitted that" on occasion but also past tense "knit" as well.
    Best wishes for a calm week.
    Thanks for posting - very much appreciated,
    LisaRR in Toronto

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  2. Perhaps that's what I need to do - start fresh with real Shetland yarn. I also have a bunch of the old Alice Starmore shetland as back up...

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  3. Good luck holding on -- hopefully things will start to settle into a pattern that at least looks like it will asymptotically reach a decent state!

    I definitely "knit" things in the past!

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  4. Anonymous3:26 PM

    I always say "knit" for past tense but I see more and more on-line sources saying "knitted".
    - Beth in Ontario

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  5. I have never said "knitted".

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  6. Past tense active is "I knit ..." for me, passive is "was knitted...". "Knitted" is also the adjective for an article I knit at some point.

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  7. From my experience, here in Sydney (Australia), "knitted" is almost universally used as the past tense. "Knit" as past tense is rarely heard. Other Australian knitters : what prevails in your areas?

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  8. I'm in the 'knitted' camp!

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  9. "knitted" for me too - "knit" strikes a slight hint of foreign idiom.

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  10. Barbara M. In NH9:03 AM

    In a long ago linguistics class, I learned that most irregular verbs tend to move from the irregular to the regular......the exception of course, being the most commonly used, as in " I am, I was, I will be., etc". It's been a long time since I heard " I dreamt". Now it seems to be " I dreamed. Same with burn, burnt.....most Americans will tell you they burned themselves, not burnt themselves.

    And while we grammarians of the old school may object, " knitted" is the regular, and therefore most likely past tense going forward.

    Barbara M in NH (retired English teacher!)

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    Replies
    1. There are a few books out there that discuss the evolution of languages and the history of English. I find the whole subject fascinating.

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  11. Anonymous11:17 AM

    I agree that 'knit' is likely to be the most gramatically acceptable to the purists amongst us but 'knitted' is more widely used and therefore more widely acceptable. When receiving a compliment on a knitted article we are more likely to say: "thank you, I knitted it myself".....

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  12. I've always thought of past tense knit as an Americanism. I've always used knitted.

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  13. How about the spinners out there? What's the past participle of the verb "to spin"? I spun it? I span it? I spinned it? I'm so unsure of this one, I usually change the structure of my sentence!

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  14. Anonymous3:25 PM

    Dear Jean,

    Thank you for your kind description of me, the German help. I enjoyed "helping" Cathy very much, even though it took me three days to be of any use other than doing some translations for German customers who did perfectly well with their English :-)

    Now I'm back to my normal life, teaching some English and many business classes.

    Daniela from Germany

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