In respect to them all, I think he makes an ill choice.  According to his own showing, fling, string, and sting, always make the preterit and the participle alike; and this is the obvious tendency of the language, in all these words.  I reject slang and span, as derivatives from sling and spin; because, in such a sense, they are obsolete, and the words have other uses.  Lindley Murray, in his early editions, rejected sang, sank, slang, swang, shrank, slank, stank, and span; and, at the same time, preferred rang, sprang, and swam, to rung, sprung, and swum.  In his later copies, he gave the preference to the u, in all these words; but restored sang and sank, which Crombie names above, still omitting the other six, which did not happen to be mentioned to him.

[288] Sate for the preterit of sit, and sitten for the perfect participle, are, in my opinion, obsolete, or no longer in good use.  Yet several recent grammarians prefer sitten to sat; among whom are Crombie, Lennie, Bullions, and M’Culloch.  Dr. Crombie says, “Sitten, though formerly in use, is now obsolescent.  Laudable attempts, however, have been made to restore it.”—­On Etymol. and Syntax, p. 199.  Lennie says, “Many authors, both here and in America, use sate as the Past time of sit; but this is improper, for it is apt to be confounded with sate to glut. Sitten and spitten are preferable [to sat and spit,] though obsolescent.”—­Principles of E. Gram., p. 45.  Bullions says, “Sitten and spitten are nearly obsolete, though preferable to sat and spit.”—­Principles of E. Gram., p. 64.  M’Culloch gives these verbs in the following form:  “Sit, sat, sitten or sat.  Spit, spit or spat, spit or spitten.”—­Manual of E. Gram., p. 65.

[289] “He will find the political hobby which he has bestrided no child’s nag.”—­The Vanguard, a Newspaper.

   “Through the pressed nostril, spectacle-bestrid.”—­Cowper.

    “A lank haired hunter strided.”—­Whittier’s Sabbath Scene.

[290] In the age of Pope, writ was frequently used both for the participle and for the preterit of this verb.  It is now either obsolete or peculiar to the poets.  In prose it seems vulgar:  as, “He writ it, at least, published it, in 1670.”—­Barclay’s Works, Vol. i, p. 77.

   “He, who, supreme in judgement, as in wit,
    Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ.”—­Pope, Ess. on Crit.

Dr. Crombie remarked, more than thirty years ago, that, “Wrote as the Participle [of Write,] is generally disused, and likewise writ.”—­Treatise on Etym. and Synt., p. 202.

[291] A word is not necessarily ungrammatical by reason of having a rival form that is more common.  The regular words, beseeched, blowed, bursted, digged, freezed, bereaved, hanged, meaned, sawed, showed, stringed, weeped, I admit for good English, though we find them all condemned by some critics.