Some friends and I were trying to decide the past tense of “blow dry”, as in drying one’s hair with the blow dryer.
Any thoughts?
I kind of thought it was “blow-dried”, but no one agreed with me.
Part of the problem is there is no present tense either. Come on, make an intelligent sentence with “blow dry” as a present tense verb. I dare you.
The answer to this question is more easily seen if we insert the missing hyphen. The verb under discussion is not “blow dry” or “blow,” but rather “blow-dry.” I do not blow my hair dry; I blow-dry it.
Every day I blow-dry my hair.
Yesterday I blow-dried my hair.
Compare freeze-dry. It’s freeze-dried coffee, not frozen-dry coffee. I know there are other analogues, but I’m drawing a blank on what they are.
Scarlett67 is right: it’s “blow-dried.”
Another example is “hand-washed.”
Dictionary sez: blow-dried.
Not quite. I was trying to think of compound verbs in which the first element is a verb and the second can be interpreted as either an adjective or a verb (but it’s really a verb). Those are most illustrative of the confusion here.
(Argh! Trying to think of another one.)
Can anyone else come up with one?
<<banging head on desk>>
“Hand” is so a verb. Hand me a towel. 
How about “force-feed?” (Force is both a noun and a verb, but it’s the verb sense that’s meant here.)
Well, another “dry” option is tumble-dried.
I disagree that it’s a compound verb issue, though. The verb is being modified by the word before it (sun-dried, air-dried, oven-dried, line-dried, freeze-dried), so it only makes sense to change the tense of the verb, not the modifier. The only problem is figuring out which verb in the compound is the modifier. In this case, it’s obviously “blow”, since there the meaning of the sentence is greatly altered by using “blow” alone, but remains the same with “dry” alone:
I blew my hair.
I dried my hair.
3
Mmmm, still not quite. The confusion with “blow dry” (note the absent hyphen) is that people want to say “I blew my hair dry.” You would not try to say “They had to force him feed” (or “I handed my lingerie wash” ). Also, “feed” cannot be (mis)interpreted as an adjective here.
You’ll have to picture Steve Martin jumping up and down in his jail cell in Planes, Trains and Automobiles to fully understand my frustration at not being able to think of another example.
Saw this after I posted. Yes, that’s the type of example I was thinking of. But I wish I could find one that doesn’t involve “dry”!
[bolding mine]
Well, yes, I think we’re both right, but describing the problem differently. In the OP and the type of examples I’m seeking, the first element modifies the second (which is the true verb), but can be misinterpreted as a verb, and that’s what causes the confusion. In your list of examples, several do not have a first element that could be mistaken for a verb, and so no one would try to make them “past tense”—ovened it dry? lined it dry? No one would try to make these forms (unless they were insane, perhaps), so they’re not analogous to the OP.
I’ve asked some fellow copyeditors for better examples.
And to infinitii, let me be the first to say, “Huh??”
It still involves “dry”, but is dry clean another example of what you’re looking for, Scarlett?
Agreed, Scarlett67. We are two warriors on the side of Grammar!
OK, here are some other examples of of compound verbs: taste-test.
I taste-tested the brownies.
not
I tasted-test the brownies.
Play-act:
The children play-acted dramatic deaths to get attention.
not
*The children played-act dramatic deaths to get attention.
P.S. My first thought when I saw infinitii’s post was, “infinitii has spoken.” Hee hee!
Are you sure? Could this not be an attributive noun modifying the verb (to feed by/with force)?
'Fraid not, delphica – it fails the “fault test” when you try to erroneously put it in past tense. “I had my clothes dried clean”? Nope. Not the same confusion as in the OP.
Perhaps “blow-dry” is unique in this respect. I’ll shut up now unless and until I come up with anotehr example!
On preview: Beadalin, I’d say that your second example is closer, but maybe not quite it either. The test is whether a person would actually try to form the past tense in the incorrect form. In the form we’re looking at, we want the second element to be open to misinterpretation as an adjective, and neither test nor act fits.
Eh, I think I’m just confusing everyone. And we’ve answered the OP, I think. Me and my love of analogies! I just couldn’t do it this time. Wah.
You could say,“Yesterday my hair was wet,so I blew my head off.”
Seriously,I see dry as the verb.Blow is the modifier to said verb.
thus
“I blow dried my hair this morning.”
“Blow-dried” may be correct, but it’s just too bad - “blown dry” is much sexier.
Personally, to avoid confusion, my hair is towel dried. Or is it toweled dry? Oh dear…