From Booksmart Studios, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.
I'm John McWhorter, and I want to continue in the vein of the last show.
I don't usually do it this way,
but it seems almost inevitable that if there was a whole show about the verb come,
then certainly we have to say something about, well, Three guesses.
The verb go, because actually it's just as interesting as come.
Coming and going are a big part of any language.
They express themselves in many ways.
And so let's talk about go.
So, for example, talk about come and its past form came and how that's not what it's supposed to be.
And then the business with my son is come after a long journey away.
Well, you know, with go, if you think about it, the past is wrong, too, because you say went.
Clearly went.
is not a form of the root go.
I go, he goes, and then I went, and she went.
That went is actually a whole different verb.
Go is a funny thing where two different verbs had a train wreck, and now they occupy the same space.
So if you think about it, I wended my way into the forest or something like that.
It's that went verb, which itself is marginal, but that's where the went.
comes from.