I miss my irregular verbs. More and more these days, I'm seeing words like "knelt" and "shone" and "burnt" and "trod" replaced by the distinctly bland and uninteresting "kneeled" and "shined" and "burned" and "treaded." The irregular forms may be more difficult to learn when diving into the study of English, but they make for such lovely rhythms when reading and writing and speaking. My tongue sticks and clatters over phrases like "shined down" and "burned to a crisp," where the irregular "shone down" and "burnt'o a crisp" almost sing.

I suppose this means I'll be one of Those Authors if I'm ever published: "I don't care what your spellcheck says! 'Grey' needs an 'e' and 'shone' had better damn well stay 'shone'!" Or maybe the fact that I write fantasy, where more archaic language is appropriate, will prove my saving grace.