The Past Participle of Stride

Abstract

IN HIS EXEMPLARY OBITUARY Albert Henry (Language 52 [1976]: 667-81), Archibald A. Hill recalls his close association with Marckwardt when the two of them were young men at the University of Michigan fifty years ago and remarks, remember.., .his amusedly asking me about the past participle of stride: 'Is it stridden?' Hill then goes on to say, have been listening ever since for an example of this curiously non-existent (p. 668). Since reading these words I too have been listening, but to no avail. And, indeed, so rare is this inflected form of a by no means uncommon English verb that there is no record of it in the extensive MerriamWebster pronunciation files. There is, however, a considerable body of written evidence for the past participial form of stride, and it is the purpose of this short paper to bring this material together. The OED entry for the verb stride yields several examples of the past participial form, and others may be found at the entries for the derivative verbs bestride, outstride, and overstride, whose inflectional forms are surely those of the root word. The following is a complete record, arranged in chronological order, of the past participles of these four words as they appear in the OED: