Snowblowed or Snowblew?

What is the proper past tense form of the verb "to snowblow"?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• grammar
• girl
• grammargirl
• snowblow
• English

[TheGrammarGirl]

"Babysat" is the past tense of "to babysit."

[TheGrammarGirl]

It occurred to me that another reason "snowblowed" sounds better is that "snow" rhymes with "blow." If we use "snowblew," we lose that rhyming.

At least one person on Twitter said there is a rule that all new verbs are formed as regular verbs. I haven't heard that, although it sounds right for completely new verbs. I'm just not sure it would apply to new verbs derived from older verbs.

[TheGrammarGirl]

OK, the Oxford English Dictionary does have "blowed" as the past participle of "to blow" for the 29th definition (marked as vulgar), for which the example sentence is "I'm absolutely blowed if I know what to do."

[dulcigal]

Snowblown.  There, I've said it.

[Cernoise]

In any case, even 'blew snow from the driveway' is better than yellow snow on the driveway.

I looked this up on wikipedia, and apparently it's called noun incorporation. The other examples they gave had their normal (even if irregular) past tenses, e.g. breastfed, babysat, backstabbed.

[ashleyp29]

I'd just say "I plowed the driveway."

[FoxyGrandpa]

Babysat or babysitted?

[Qermaq]

I like when she says "blow" for some reason.

[RidgeCutie]

I'm inclined to say "snowblowered," since you are using a snowblower to do the job. That's what I'd say, anyway, just before ducking to avoid the hurled snowball.

[TheYootoobyooser]

Great video! Up here in Alaska we snowblow our driveways, we don't blow the snow (the snowblower does that). I've never been certain about the past tense, either, but snowblowed sounds best to me.

And to confuse matters even more, Sears calls my machine a snowthrower, so I guess I snowthrowed my driveway yesterday.

[dsignchick75]

Should we rephrase the sentence? Can we use a snowblower to clear the yard?

[mrrealtime]

incidentally, in the "biz" they are called "snow throwers" not "snow blowers" because they aren't really blowing anything IE the do not use wind turbines to propel the snow away like a leaf blower does, they pick it up and throw it with a spinning auger. I "threw some snow off my driveway using a snow throwing machine" would probably be a more technically accurate statement.

[mrrealtime]

I dont accept "snowblow" as a verb, a "snow blower" is a device that blows snow, like a "leaf blower" blows leaves. You dont say "leaf blowed" or "leafblew" and you dont say "dustblower" when you blow some dust off of something. Snow and blower are two seperate words.  You "blowed snow" or "blew snow" off your driveway would be proper in my opinion.