Your daily usage tip hot off the press.

 
 
 
 

Smarter words.

 
 

bend > bent > bent.

 

bend > bent > bent. So inflected (although on bended knee is a set phrase). Occasionally the verb gets bent out of shape—e.g.:


  • “A teammate dummied a run over the ball, and then Mikacenic hit a right-footed shot—Lakeside’s first of the game—that bended [read bent] up and around Mount Rainier’s four-player wall and into the far-post side netting.” Melanie Brennan, “Girls Soccer: Lakeside Ousts Mount Rainier,” Seattle Times, 22 Nov. 1997, at B7.


  • “He rolled and bended [read bent] the wrist to prove its mobility and strength.” Paul Grondahl, “Racing Form,” Times Union (Albany), 26 July 1998, at T2.


  • “Lest anyone accuse my little one of being partisan, she might well have copied Hillary Clinton’s Democratic National Convention address if we had bended [read bent] the bedtime rule to allow her to stay up to watch it.” Jennifer Wheary, “Copying the ‘Can-Do’ Sarah Palin,” Newsday (N.Y.), 8 Sept. 2008, at A29.


        But in soccer, bended is the accepted past-tense and part-participial form of bend (= to kick a ball with enough spin to make it curve)—e.g.: “[Keenan] Seguancia bended his free kick to the edge of the 6-yard box and [Leslie] Nwapa got past the defense and knocked it in.” Kyle Sakamoto, “Roosevelt 2, Àiea 1,” Honolulu Advertiser, 25 Jan. 2008, at D2.

 

 
 
 
 

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