# Language usage: "wound up" vs. "winded up" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 9, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621 "2008-04-09T15:27:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/1 "2008-04-09T15:27:31Z")
I’m reading CityRoom blog on the New York Times’ website. In one of the entries by a regular Times staff writer (_not_ a reader or other outsider) is this line: _" …He wanted to go hunt Osama bin Laden, but winded up in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11… "_ My brain goes: “winded up”??? I always thought it was “wound up.” But maybe this is like “hanged” and “hung” where both forms can be correct depending on usage. Still, I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard “winded up.” Is the writer correct? ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/2 "2008-04-09T15:34:50Z")
Sounds weird to me but my dictionary allows it, though prefers “wound.” It does not specifically address the idiom as used but in the sense of twisting around. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/3 "2008-04-09T15:40:29Z")
I feel that if this is going to be correct at all, it would have to be in this context. I cannot imagine that “I am all winded up” could ever be correct. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/4 "2008-04-09T16:34:08Z")
“Winded” is probably just bad usage, but I wonder if it could be the remnants of an older verb, a possibility if two different verbs were once used in English: One to suggest “winding” as done to a thing–like in “I wind the clock” (i.e. transitive form) vs. “wind” as in “The clock winds down” (i.e. intransitive). Similar to the distinction between “lie/lay”, “rise/raise”, and what was posted in [this thread on “hung” vs. “hanged”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=459258&highlight=hanged). ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/5 "2008-04-09T16:45:23Z")
That’s a new one to me. I have seen “winded,” but only when it meant “out of breath” from exertion, and it had a short i sound. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/6 "2008-04-09T16:51:18Z")
there’s also ‘the long and winded road’, which has a long ‘i’ sound (as in the personal pronoun). ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/7 "2008-04-09T17:03:32Z")
[QUOTE=Švejk] there’s also ‘the long and winded road’, which has a long ‘i’ sound (as in the personal pronoun). [/QUOTE] Isn’t that the “long and wind **ing** ” road? Or was I being whooshed? ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/8 "2008-04-09T17:30:10Z")
D’oh :smack: ---
**Author:** ![mwbrooks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@mwbrooks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mwbrooks)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/9 "2008-04-09T17:34:38Z")
[QUOTE=stuyguy] I _" …He wanted to go hunt Osama bin Laden, but winded up in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11… "_ My brain goes: “winded up”??? [/QUOTE] I think I’ve heard “winded” in that particular usage more than any other, except maybe phrases like “winded it with magnet wire,” etc. I like “wound” better, too. Depending on your background or frame of mind, I guess it could seem “off” either way, because either way there’s a homograph. (The other way is illustrated by a line from the Mikado: “My wounds with vengeance shall be wound.”) (Heh. She wounded me with magnet wire.) ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/10 "2008-04-09T18:36:47Z")
It’s perfectly sound. As OED says, _winded_ is the weak past participle of wind, although wound is far more common. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/11 "2008-04-09T18:43:29Z")
It’s not surprising that another irregular word is on its way out. In my lifetime I have seen the word _rooves_ become virtually archaic. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/12 "2008-04-09T19:08:02Z")
To me, the more surprising thing is the regular word that becomes irregular through usage. The best example I know is the past tense of “sneak”, which in standard English is “sneaked” but more and more people say “snuck”. Ed ---
**Author:** ![Roog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a87d85/32.png) [@Roog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roog)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/13 "2008-04-10T12:12:30Z")
The rate at which irregular verbs become regularized has been [studied](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7163/full/nature06137.html). According to that article, of the 177 verbs studied, 79 became regularized over a period of 1200 years. A more frequently used verb is less likely to become regularized and the most common verbs (be, can, do, go, have, say, see, take, …) are all irregular. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/14 "2008-04-10T12:35:07Z")
[QUOTE=suranyi] To me, the more surprising thing is the regular word that becomes irregular through usage. The best example I know is the past tense of “sneak”, which in standard English is “sneaked” but more and more people say “snuck”. [/QUOTE] This happens occasionally, but the general tendency is for irregulars to become regular: pled =\> pleaded; lit =\> lighted; dreamt =\> dreamed, etc. The sneak/snuck phenomenon probably has come about because of the vowel morphology: fling/flung; sling/slung; spring/sprung; sting;/stung. Granted, those are all nasals, so I share your surprise. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/15 "2008-04-10T19:19:02Z")
[QUOTE=guizot] This happens occasionally, but the general tendency is for irregulars to become regular: pled =\> pleaded; lit =\> lighted; dreamt =\> dreamed, etc. The sneak/snuck phenomenon probably has come about because of the vowel morphology: fling/flung; sling/slung; spring/sprung; sting;/stung. Granted, those are all nasals, so I share your surprise. [/QUOTE] Dive/dove has nearly become standard too, presumably because of similarity to drive/drove. ---
**Author:** ![jasonh300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/16 "2008-04-10T21:00:28Z")
I’ve always used “wound up” as in “Elmer ate too many raw oysters and wound up in the hospital with food poisoning.” When I hear “winded up”, I always think that it’s a cross between “wound up” and “ended up”. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/17 "2008-04-10T21:53:50Z")
[QUOTE=guizot] pled =\> pleaded [/QUOTE] Hasn’t “pleaded” been the standard for a long time? It seems to me that this is the other way around: Jargonic use of “pled” by cops is bleeding into general usage. ---
**Author:** ![mwbrooks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@mwbrooks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mwbrooks)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-usage-wound-up-vs-winded-up/444621/18 "2008-04-11T00:09:51Z")
[QUOTE=guizot] This happens occasionally, but the general tendency is for irregulars to become regular: pled =\> pleaded; lit =\> lighted; dreamt =\> dreamed, etc. The sneak/snuck phenomenon probably has come about because of the vowel morphology: fling/flung; sling/slung; spring/sprung; sting;/stung. Granted, those are all nasals, so I share your surprise. [/QUOTE] Does it matter which side of the vowel the nasal is on? If sneaked becomes snuck, what might eked become (if anybody used it)?