Miscellaneous word questions

Factual Questions
1

A few questions for fellow word lovers out there. These have been bothering me a while:
The verbs ‘hit’ and ‘cut’ change neither spelling nor pronunciation when used in the past tense. Example:

Present
Cut along the dotted lines
Hit the ball straight and true

Past
I cut myself last week
Jeremy hit his sister

Why are these two words exceptions from the norm of changing a word when it becomes past tense? Are there any other word out there that fit this pattern?

The verb ‘read’ kind of fits - it changes pronunciation but not spelling:

Present
Please read chapters four and five tonight

Past
I read a great book last summer

Another one about strange past tenses: the verb run. For the most part it’s pretty simple.

Present
I run a mile a day

Past
I ran the Boston Marathon in record time

But it gets tricky in the following usage (sorry I don’t know the correct terminology for this construction):
Secretariat had ran better than any other horse that year

Why does this sound so wrong to my ear? I want to say:
Secretariat had run better than any other horse that year

But my rules of English tell me that is totally unacceptable to use a present-tense verb in that situation. You’d never say, “My horse had walk off her stiffness,” or “My horse had chew an apple.” In each case you’d use the past-tense: walked and chewed. So why does “had run” seem so right and “had ran” seem so wrong? Am I just an idiot? (I got into an argument with my boss over this so I really need to know who’s right! (For the record, I voted for ‘had ran’ because it should be right, even if it doesn’t seem so.)

And finally, this next one may be better suited for GD, but I’ll give it a shot as a straight question:

Why is there no value-neutral word for a gay man? A gay woman we call a lesbian, but there is no such value-neutral noun for a gay man (at least as far as I can figure). There’s queer, fag, flamer, etc., but all of these carry negative connotations with them.

Does the lack of such a term say something about our society - that female homosexuality is much more accepted than is male homosexuality?

~ Complacency is far more dangerous than outrage ~

2

I’m no linguist or etymologist but I’ve gleaned some general information from my reading.

People invent languages, and then grammarians come along afterwards to document the patterns. Words used commonly (e.g. be, do, have, go, set, run) will generally (but not always) get shortened, and their tenses (verbs) or declinations (nouns) become irregular as people modify the word to sound good in a wide variety of sentences.

Historically, I believe that is correct. Male homosexuality has always had a higher negative profile than female homosexuality. I’m not sure why this should be so.

He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’

3

Stark,

You’re talking about strong verbs; one of the more fun topics at a grammar convention. These are verbs whose past and perfect tenses are not formed by adding “ed”. The perfect tenses are used with the verb to have, as in “I have started, I had started, I will have started.” But strong verbs go all over the place. Hide, hid, hidden. But not slide, slid, slidden. See what I mean? Anyway, the tenses of run are: run, ran, run, so you are right to say “Secretariat had run…” It’s not the present tense, it’s the perfect tense. So what if they’re the same.

Other words where all three tenses are the same are “hurt” and “burst”. “Fit” can be, but it’s optional. You can say “I fit into these pants yesterday”, or “I fitted into these pants yesterday”, whichever you prefer. Ain’t English grand?

4

Regarding the homosexual question, I had learned it that homosexual was the generic term, gay refered to men, and lesbian to women. However, in our male dominated society, we always prefer the male case for gender neutral usage. Either that, or it’s easier to say gay than homosexual or lesbian.

Just my take on it. Gay has come to be gender neutral, but lesbian is gender specific.

5

I’ve only seen “gay” used as a noun when it is plural. Is it proper usage to call a gay man “a gay”?