By Edward Bedford
The verb yeet /ji:t/1 is a neologism which seems to have been coined around February 2014. Originally the name of a sort-of dance, it has undergone verbification to form the verb that this article concerns. For the purposes of this article it doesn’t really matter what it means, which is useful as it does not have a meaning that can easily be pinned down. What is of interest is the multitude of forms the verb seems to take in different tenses, and so is an interesting example of how language evolves and how new words are created and integrated into pre-existing grammatical structures, especially in the online world with new forms of communication.
In this article I will focus only on how the Simple Past can be formed. When considering this, people tend to think of how similar sounding verbs act. Comparison with verbs such as, meet-met, feed-fed, and lead-led2, suggest that the verb will act irregularly and will not take the form yeeted, and instead takes an irregular form in a similar manner to pre-existing verbs.
However, the pattern of the verbs I have mentioned cannot work for yeet as it would result in yet which is already a common word and so is not a viable option. As such, comparison must be made with other irregular verbs: e.g, eat and speak. And so from eat-ate and speak-spake, one generates yate, whilst from speak-spoke one generates yote. As there are two different possible forms there are many explanations why one is more correct than the other. Oddly there seem to be very few arguments that suggest that both could survive, as is the case with spoke and spake.
The most common explanation seems to be that yeet fits into one of the classes of Strong Verbs in Old English and thus must form its Simple Past form in a certain way. This argument is fallacious for a number of reasons, primarily that yeet is a truly modern word, not a descendant of any Old English form. As such the only grammar that should be seriously considered is that of Modern English. The other reason why looking to Old English verb classes is unhelpful is that many Modern English verbs that have irregular past tenses are not descended from Old English Strong Verbs. Some of these act identically in Modern English to verbs which are descended from Strong Verbs.
As such one must consider why it is that yote seems to be preferred to yate. This could be because of the commonness of speak-spoke which would favour, by comparison, yote. Other verbs such as smite-smote might play a part yet I feel trying to explain why a form is preferred purely by comparison to other verbs misses the key understanding of why these other forms seem correct. As such, I would suggest that this is not the primary reason for yote /joʊt/3 to be prefered to yate /jeɪt/. Instead ablaut reduplication4 is what favours yote and disfavours yate, when the verb is thought of, or recited, as its principal parts. When considering the vowel change of yeet-yate one sees the vowel i: change to eɪ whereas with yeet-yote one sees i: change to oʊ . The vowel change present in yeet-yote is closer to the expected of ablaut reduplication, i-a-o, and follows the trend of moving from a front high vowel to a back low vowel.
I would be willing to bet that yote will win out as the major form, with yeeted existing as a variant, rather obsolete form. This coexistence might permit a subtle differentiation of meaning, in a similar manner to that of burnt and burned. Indeed, as English is so varied and permits such multivalence, it might be that different dialects or registers of English will find certain forms more acceptable than others.
This is why I feel that although yote will be the most common form in spoken English, yeeted will remain used in more formal written registers, which feel that the regular method of creating the Simple Past should be used. Ultimately, time and usage will tell what the most commonly accepted forms are, and we must accept them, since English is a living language and always on the move.
1 I will use The International Phonetic Alphabet to show pronunciation where it is relevant.
2 I have chosen to use a hyphen to show the present and Simple Past forms of verbs.
3 An archaic Simple Past form, which lead to the modern form as a variant.
4 The reason why tick-tock sounds right but tock-tick does not.
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