# "Drug" as past tense of "drag" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 6, 2013, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288 "2013-01-06T22:12:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/1 "2013-01-06T22:12:38Z")
Occasionally I’ve heard people use the word “drug” to mean the past tense of “drag”. How did this originate, where is it used, and is it common? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/2 "2013-01-06T22:33:14Z")
Marking the past tense of a verb by changing a vowel (a technique called ablaut, also used to distinguish words like “sing” and song") is as old as English. Verbs changed in that fashion are called strong verbs. Verbs whose past tense is marked by adding _ed_ are called weak (or regular). I suspect that “drug” is older than “dragged,” though I’m having a little trouble pulling up a cite right now. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/3 "2013-01-06T23:58:22Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Marking the past tense of a verb by changing a vowel (a technique called ablaut, also used to distinguish words like “sing” and song") is as old as English. Verbs changed in that fashion are called strong verbs. Verbs whose past tense is marked by adding _ed_ are called weak (or regular). I suspect that “drug” is older than “dragged,” though I’m having a little trouble pulling up a cite right now. Wow. A true expert is in our midst. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/4 "2013-01-07T00:02:00Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > Wow. A true expert is in our midst. 🙂 No, I’m a dilettante. At best I’m an auto-didact, and you know what they say about self-educated men. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/5 "2013-01-07T00:12:37Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Marking the past tense of a verb by changing a vowel (a technique called ablaut, also used to distinguish words like “sing” and song") is as old as English. Verbs changed in that fashion are called strong verbs. Verbs whose past tense is marked by adding _ed_ are called weak (or regular). I suspect that “drug” is older than “dragged,” though I’m having a little trouble pulling up a cite right now. I believe that while, in general, strong verbs are older, in this case, drug is a recent innovation in the style of sneaked/snuck and dived/dove which are also more recent aberrations than their -ed counterparts. ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/6 "2013-01-07T00:13:31Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > No, I’m a dilettante. At best I’m an auto-didact, and you know what they say about self-educated men. They have big feet? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/7 "2013-01-07T00:20:05Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > No, I’m a dilettante. At best I’m an auto-didact, and you know what they say about self-educated men. They’re not worth the paper they’re written on? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/8 "2013-01-07T00:34:34Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > They’re not worth the paper they’re written on? > [@FuzzyOgre](#): > > They have big feet? [General Zod] Why do y’all say these things, when you know I will kill y’all for it? [/General Zod] > [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I believe that while, in general, strong verbs are older, in this case, drug is a recent innovation in the style of sneaked/snuck and dived/dove which are also more recent aberrations than their -ed counterparts. I wouldn’t be surprised to find I was wrong; I was getting. But I think both are as reasonable constructions as _y’all._ ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/9 "2013-01-07T00:36:36Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > No, I’m a dilettante. At best I’m an auto-didact, and you know what they say about self-educated men. They have a fool for a teacher! ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/10 "2013-01-07T00:52:07Z")
Who’d have thunk “drug” was a verb. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/11 "2013-01-07T01:03:43Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Who’d have thunk “drug” was a verb. Drug can be a verb. Consider \*Barry fell asleep at the party because he had been drugged. \* Moreover, this sentence _I drug the sack of potatoes all the way to CBI headquarters, never suspecting it held the corpse of a murdered man_ makes perfect sense. It doesn’t fit the most prescriptivist grammar, of course, but its form adheres to the basic form of our language; I don’t think anyone has any difficulty parsing it. While I don’t use drug as the past tense of drag myself (except when making examples as above), I think calling it a huge mistake is wrong. It’s just a change in the language. The k in knight was once voiced, and now it is not; that doesn’t mean that the current pronuncation is wrong, just that the change happened long enough ago that we’re not generally aware of it. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/12 "2013-01-07T03:00:53Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Drug can be a verb. Consider > > _Barry fell asleep at the party because he had been drugged._ _Barry fell asleep at the party because he was drugged, so we drug him to drug rehab._ Yeh, still works. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/13 "2013-01-07T04:22:50Z")
I believe this is an example of over-generalization, where the conjugation of sing/sang/sung was mistakenly applied to “drag.” ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/14 "2013-01-07T04:53:32Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I wouldn’t be surprised to find I was wrong; I was getting. But I think both are as reasonable constructions as _y’all._ I don’t particularly know why; just that all my linguistics resources offline and on take it as read that it’s newer. I haven’t found where they determine that. My assumption is that it simply doesn’t appear in the written corpus until after dragged was well established. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > While I don’t use drug as the past tense of drag myself (except when making examples as above), I think calling it a huge mistake is wrong. It’s just a change in the language. The k in knight was once voiced, and now it is not; that doesn’t mean that the current pronuncation is wrong, just that the change happened long enough ago that we’re not generally aware of it. Is anyone calling it wrong, though? It’s extremely dialectical, I would say more so than either snuck or dove but I don’t think anyone is saying it’s wrong as such, which is pleasantly refresing. > [@Superhal](#): > > I believe this is an example of over-generalization, where the conjugation of sing/sang/sung was mistakenly applied to “drag.” Overgeneralization, yes, sing specifically, no or else we would expect drig/drag/drug. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/15 "2013-01-07T05:09:25Z")
Dope smugglers drug drugs across the border. Did you drug on that joint? Nope, just doesn’t track right. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/16 "2013-01-07T05:12:25Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > I believe this is an example of over-generalization, where the conjugation of sing/sang/sung was mistakenly applied to “drag.” Yes, but a lot of people get sing/sang/sung wrong the same way, as well as sink/sank/sunk. ---
**Author:** ![GiantRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@GiantRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GiantRat)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/17 "2013-01-07T05:16:36Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Who’d have thunk “drug” was a verb. And who’d think “drunk” was a verb? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/18 "2013-01-07T05:27:30Z")
Just don’t confuse hung with hanged. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/19 "2013-01-07T05:30:43Z")
Well I’ll be danged. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288/20 "2013-01-07T05:41:42Z")
The drugged, drag queens were drug off to jail. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drug-as-past-tense-of-drag/646288.md?page=2)