eil was _rended_."
--_Whittier's Moll Pitcher_.

"Mortal, my message is for thee; thy chain to earth is _rended_;
I bear thee to eternity; prepare! thy course is ended."
--_The Amulet_.

"Come as the winds come, when forests are _rended_."
--_Sir W. Scott_.

"The hunger pangs her sons which rended."
--NEW QUARTERLY REVIEW: _Examiner_, No. 119.

[285] We find now and then an instance in which _gainsay_ is made regular:
as, "It can neither be _rivalled_ nor _gainsayed_."--_Chapman's Sermons to
Presbyterians_, p. 36. Perhaps it would be as well to follow Webster here,
in writing _rivaled_ with one _l_: and the analogy of the simple verb
_say_, in forming this compound irregularly, _gainsaid_. Usage warrants the
latter, however, better than the former.

[286] "Shoe, _shoed_ or shod, shoeing, _shoed_ or shod."--_Old Gram., by W.
Ward_, p. 64; and _Fowle's True English Gram._, p. 46.

[287] "A. Murray has rejected _sung_ as the _Preterite_, and L. Murray has
rejected _sang_. Each _Preterite_, however, rests on good authority. The
same observation may be made, respecting _sank_ and _sunk_. Respecting the
_preterites_ which have _a_ or _u_, as _slang_, or _slung, sank_, or
_sunk_, it would be better were the former only to be used, as the
_Preterite_ and Participle would thus be discriminated."--_Dr. Crombie, on
Etymology and Syntax_, p. 199. The _preterits_ which this critic thus
prefers, are _rang, sang, stung, sprang, swang, sank, shrank, slank, stank,
swam_, and _span_ for _spun_. In respect to them all, I think he makes an
ill choice. According to his own showing, _fling, string_, and _sting_,
always make the preterit and the participle alike; and this is the obvious
tendency of the language, in all these words. I reject _slang_ and _span_,
as derivatives from _sling_ and _spin_; because, in such a sense, they are
obsolete, and the words have other uses. Lindley Murray, _in his early
editions_, rejected _sang, sank, slang, swang, shrank, slank, stank_, and
_span_; and, at the same time, preferred _rang, sprang_, and _swam_, to
_rung, sprung_, and _swum_. In his later copies, he gave the preference to
the _u_, in all these words; but restored _sang_ and _sank_, which Crombie
names above, still omitting the other six, which did not happen to be
mentioned to him.

[288] _Sate_ for the preterit of _sit_, and _sitten_ for the perfect
participle, are, in my opinion, obsolet