I have recently been given some old reference books, one of which is particularly useful, 'Usage and Abusage', where you can look up any word and see how it is misused.
BUT, my copy was printed in 1973!

It says the following past participles should be used:
leaned, leaped, learned

and that these:
leant, leapt, learnt

'are tending to become obsolete' (in 1973)

would you agree, then, that
he had leaned out of the window

is more correct than
he had leant out of the window
?
Because 'leant' sounds more natural to me.
(it is an excellent book, though, and cleared up my bugbear of hanged or hung).

Thanks for any views.

Sammy

In my opinion I think they're pretty much interchangeable. I have some personal preferences, for example I prefer to use 'spelled' over 'spelt', though oddly the OED reckons that 'spelt' is the prefered British version.

In all of the cases you've mentioned I'd suggest that there may be a very subtle difference in what they bring to a sentence.

"Jack leant against the tree and watched the traffic." Comes across to me as quick and light, informal. While...

"Jack leaned into the car slowly, filling the window."

seems to me a little more menacing.

To be honest I could be making this up but I do know that the different versions crop up in different places when I'm writing so I think there's something to it.

I can't (with the time I've got) find anything in the OED that suggests one version is more correct than another.

Jon

Jack leant...

is the past historic, though, not the past participle, which is used with either the perfect tense
jack has leant

or the plu-perfect tense
jack had leant.

My book also suggests 'spelt' for the past participle.

Thanks for looking, Jon


Sammy

<Added>

And, Jon, I would say it was the adverb 'slowly' which made that sentence more menacing, not the word 'leaned' :)

But maybe you are right, maybe there's not a hard and fast rule and it's often a question of how it feels

I tend rather unscientifically to go by how I say it - I say 'leant' and 'dreamt' so I write it like that. (But then my children think it's ridiculous that I pronounce 'ate' as if it's spelt 'ett', so what do I know?)

On the other hand my American copy-editor has just changed every one to the -ed version, and I'm going to leave it for that edition because there were worse changes to worry about.

Emma

I suppose it's another one of those things that, if an agent/publisher is grabbed by your writing, they won't worry so much about small grammatical errors.
I just get irritated by things like this.Hanged has always bugged me, but this book said, only use 'hanged' for the Death Penalty, and hung for everything else.

Sammy

I think Shellgrip is right to point to a subtle difference in meaning, whereby the -ed form suggests less speed or finality, and perhaps more continuity.

So for instance, I would say:

"It was something I had learnt at school."

but

"We had learned a lot during our stay at Throgmorton Towers."

I don't think I'm imagining it when 'learned' seems to suggest a more continuous process having taken place.

Chris2

Again,I'd have to disagree, I only think the second sentence sounds more continuous because of the word 'during'.

Compare:

I have learnt a lot during my time here

with

I have learned a lot during my time here

To me there is no subtle difference in meaning.

But, that is just my opinion and as writers we all, undoubtedly, 'feel' words differently

Sammy

I think it's a US/UK thing. Being from the US, I want to change all of your leant to leaned, etc. It looks wrong to my eye because we don't use it over here. You all catch me out on stuff that looks odd to you as well. Same language, but not!!

Patsy

Sammy - Yes, you're right. It's all very personal and subjective and, in the case of the particular argument I came up with, probably irrational as well. This discussion only serves to highlight how different a reader's reaction to a word (or understanding of it) may be from our own.

Chris

Patsy, thank you! To me the -t endings are very much part of the period voices I've used. I was feeling slightly resentful of having left the -ed endings in the US version of TMOL, in the interests of saving my fire for bigger issues. But if they really make you (and other US readers) stumble, then I'm glad I put up with the change.

Canadian readers will get the UK version.

Emma

Chris,

Good point - isn't it frustrating, to think of all the effort we put in to selecting precise words, for the prose to read as we want it to - only for the reader to interpret/feel them differently to us?!

Sammy

Emma,

Glad to be of help It's odd how even spelling and some meanings of words are different from the US to the UK. Spoilt/Spoiled, Pressure/Pressurize, etc. Does an editor, or publisher take all of this into account when something is submitted?

Patsy