Using words like "fixt" or "vext" is completely fuckt
this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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Welcome to the English language, where the rules of consistency are out the window lol
They're not acceptable. In fact I can't think of a single one except burnt that is still actively kicking around.
Who told you it was acceptable, if you don't mind me asking. And if it was your english teacher, please ask them how they managed to get here from all the way back in Shakespeare's time.
I sleeped on it and I decided you're wrong.
Off the top of my head:
Spelt - past tense of "to spell". Valid in Britain and British Commonwealth countries, though "spelled" is also accepted.
Cleft - One of the three past tenses of "cleave" that have fossilised into particular subjects at various stages. "Cloven" is ancient and "Cleaved" is the more recent.
Felt - past tense of "to feel".
Smelt - past tense of "to smell". This might also be more common in British English.
Past - used many times in this post(!). Derived from the past tense of "pass", though its usage has split somewhat from "passed" even though they're generally pronounced the same.
Spilt - past tense of "spill" not to be confused with split, (which is its own past tense). Might be another one more acceptable in British English
And none of this counts the irregular verbs that use ablaut (vowel change) and have past tenses that end in -t like taught, caught, lit etc.
Pelt, melt, Celt, belt, felt (the material), dealt, velt, welt, yelt.
Some of those are past tense verbs, some are me just making the sound and finding real words, one I'm not sure is a word but doesn't sound wrong, so I hereby declare it to be a word henceforth, if it wasn't already.
Ok, but none of the words OP listed are still in use, if they ever were. All of their example words end in -ck or -x, while none of yours do, and most of your examples have taken on different meanings in common usage and no longer serve as a past-tense verb
Yeah OP's words are definitely not accepted but British English still has lots, another I just thought of is Dreamt
They lent me a tent, but the one they sent had been bent. I wept, but at least it hadn't been lost in the mail. I'm sure they never meant any harm.
Susie Dent mentioned on a radio 4 show that words that maintained the archaic -t ending are usually more commonly used words. Words that are used less lost their -t ending and gained a more generic -ed ending as people were not taught it and used the rule they knew. So words we have like slept, dreamt, smelt are regularly used words day to day.
Dreamed and smelled are clear, but... sleeped? sleped? Utter madness.
Same as wept
I can see weeped.
Those ending in a '-t' are archaic forms left over from Middle English.
Mostly loadwords from dwarvish.
Scrabble is not a language game, but instead a spatial and arithmetic game using arbitrary strings of letters. Don't look to it as a reflexion of the state of English as she is spoke.
reflexion
I see what you did there.
Vext is present tense whereas vexed is supposed to be used in the past tense. I'm not an English major though, so 50/50 on whether that's actually correct or not but that's how I learned it.
In short, the ed prefix notates past tense normally.
Ie
Fuck Fucked Duck Ducked Touch Touched
It's just that English spelling is really fucking weird because 1/3 of our words are German. 1/3 is French 1/6 is Greek and 1/8 is Latin. Also, we're using the wrong alphabet to spell our works. This alphabet was made for the Romans who spoke Latin. The English people invented runes which much more accurately map to the words.
I got curious so I googled it
Words ending in /t/ or /d/: When a word ends in a /t/ or /d/ sound (like "start" or "need"), the "-ed" suffix is pronounced as /ɪd/, adding a new syllable to the word. For example, "started" is pronounced as "star-ted". Words ending in other sounds: If the word ends in an unvoiced sound (like "talk" or "watch"), the "-ed" suffix is pronounced as /t/. If the word ends in a voiced sound (like "bother" or "explain"), the "-ed" suffix is pronounced as /d/. For example, "watched" is pronounced as "watcht", and "explained" is pronounced as "explaind".
feel like hangovers from an old mediaeval version of the language.
This is pure conjecture on my part, but I think that might be the explanation.
Also like @Forester@pawb.social alluded to, English really isn't one language, but more like 4(+) languages in a trench coat pretending to be one. Lots of weird shit that really doesn't make much sense unless viewed from a perspective of language development & history
I hadn't heard of most of those examples besides burnt/burned, but I do know of learned/learnt, which hasn't been mentioned.
Language isn't logical in a mathematical sense. Every language develops its own logic over time as an unspoken consensus that only after the fact gets codified as orthography and grammar.
The big mother language to most languages in Europe, Protoindoeuropean, has its origins millennia ago somewhere in Ukraine. Linguists have pieced together what this language most likely sounded like. It's a game of probabilities and good educated guesses but it's fascinating. If you're a nerd. One theory is that at the earliest time when this language was formed, most if not all verbs were what we would call today irregular, think know-knew-known or sing-sang-sung etc. Small language communities have no problem with insane and arbitrary grammar like that. You learn it with your mother's milk so to speak. Very few outsiders have to deal with it. And life just goes on.
English is a true mix of stuff. The Germanic invadors after the Romans left had to deal with the native celts. They were themselves invaded by Vikings from Scandinavia and some 300 years later by Vikings that had become French. Both brought their own languages with them and influenced English. Both invasions caused situations where adults were put in a situation of having to learn another language. What kids soak up like sponges, grownups have a harder time with. So they take shortcuts in their speech. They didn't struggle too much with sing-sang-sung because that's a typical protoindoeuropean vowel change that exists just like that in many European languages to this day in versions of this particular verb. But some of the other verbs were just too hard to remember! Let's just whack a -t or -d sound at the end and Bob's you uncle. And that's how English lost a lot of its irregular verbs. Over time this became -ed in most cases. But, as I said, we don't follow a mathematical Boolean logic here. It allowed for hangers-on, regional varieties, and new formations of irregular forms. Burnt/burned hung on, fucked/fuckt did not. The reason is the flow of history.
I mean this is really dependent on the version of Scrabble you're playing.
That seems like a unique thing for your particular version. Like it's including internetisms/slang.
Some of those are actually legit words (like burnt); but some others are not.
Because things ending with a t like that looks like shit and I'm sure those who decided the spelling though the same.
The english language is a strange one. Not everything makes total sense. This is just one of those times.
If you really want to question your knowledge of the english language, play scrabble against someone who is very good at it and you'll be constantly checking the dictionary saying "there's no way that's a real word" haha