Flew or Flied?
Published: 2021-12-03The past-tense form of the verb “fly” is usually “flew”, but what about “fly” in the context of baseball (meaning “to hit a ball high into the air”)?
Grammatical irregularities are everywhere in English language. The typical examples include some past-tense (or past participle) forms of verbs and the plural forms of nouns, which we often need to memorize with almost no logical explanation. Well, in my opinion, there are not so many irregular rules, so that’s fine.
Then, what about “words derived from these irregular words”? What is the plural of “afterlife”? What about “lowlife”?
The answer is actually simple. It is the interpretation of the derived words that determines whether the irregular rules are still applied or not. For example, “afterlife” usually means “a life after death”, which is a kind of life anyway, so its plural form is “afterlives”. On the other hand, “lowlife” is “a despicable person”, which is not a life. Therefore, its plural form is “lowlifes”. For the same reason, the plural form of “still life” is “still lifes” (it’s a kind of painting), and “flatfoots” for “flatfoot” (meaning “a police officer”).
Similar patterns can be observed in the irregularity of the inflection of verbs. For example, the past-tense form of “ring” is “rang”, but when it comes to the verb “ring” as “to surround (someone or something)”, its past-tense form is “ringed”.
The verb fly in baseball (“to hit a ball high into the air”) comes from its noun fly (“a ball hit on a parabolic trajectory”), which comes from the verb fly “to move through the air”. People don’t seem to look at the deeper structure of the derivation, and they just see the fact that the verb comes from its noun fly. Therefore, the past-tense of fly in baseball is flied, not flew.
Pinker, S. 1994. the language instinct. 139-143