Re: beat, beaten [WAS: What dictionaries?]

Donna Richoux wrote:
Robert Bannister <robban1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Pity the dictionary didn't advise you that "beaten" is preferable to
"beat".

"Can't be beat" has been around for a long time. At Google Books, it
first shows up in the 1830s, on both sides of the pond,

Hmm, the numbers are surprisingly lopsided:

1,620,000 for "can't be beat"
173,000 for "can't be beaten"

I'm surprised at the following, too, which I thought would go the
other way because it's not the standard catchphrase:

387,000 for "will have beat"
15,300 for "will have beaten"

It would take more research, but it looks like "beat" is the most
common form of the past participle.

Haven't you learnt your lesson yet, Donna? Try scrolling to the end of Google's hits for "will have beat". It can only show 261 hits, not 387,000. And even if you click on the 'include similar omitted results', it only manages 418. Of 481.

(For comparison if it means anything at all, "will have beaten" shows 759 and, confusingly, 753 if you include the omitted results. Of an estimated 323,000.)

Google really is absolutely useless for this sort of thing. You'd do better with a random number generator.

--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au

.

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