Old Words Surviving as Fossils

Photo by Donald Marshall
Beloit College Geology Dept., Beloit, WI
(http://www.excitingelectrons.com/photo17.html)
no copyright infringement intended

We all know that the past tense for go is went, which makes it an irregular verb. Actually went is the past tense of another verb, whose present tense vanished long time ago: wend. And in those old times the past tense for go was gaed. It so happened that wend and gaed disappeared, and went switched to go. So wend survived in a fossilized form.

Edelina Stoian noticed on her Facebook page an article treating such kind of stuff: Twelve Old Words that Survived by Getting Fossilized in Idioms:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/51150/12-old-words-survived-getting-fossilized-idioms

(Edelina Stoian)

(A Life in Books)