Legal Writing

The Past of ?Pay? is ?Paid?

By Maeve Maddox

A reader expresses dismay at lapses in the spelling of the past form of the verb pay:
 

An article in the Burlington (VT) Free Press today had this heading:  Isle La Motte to vote on spending repayed funds.

[W]hen did repayed become an acceptable word? 

The answer, of course, is that it hasn?t.

Note: a Free Press reader pointed out the misspelling on the paper?s site:

“repayed” ?? Who buyed your English classes?

and the misspelled word was promptly corrected.

Our DWT reader offers another, more unfortunate example:

My friend’s son received a report card from his teacher that read:  Tate payed attention in class. 

Language changes and irregular verbs morph into regular verbs with -ed endings, but some words are in such frequent use that the older forms endure. It?s difficult to understand how someone educated as a teacher or a journalist could fail to master such a basic irregular spelling as paid.

The OED does include the spelling ?payed? as a form used ?chiefly in the nautical sense?:

pay: v. To smear or cover (a wooden surface or join, esp. the seams of a ship) with pitch, tar, or other substance, so as to make watertight or resistant to damage. Also (occas.) with over.

Merriam-Webster lists ?payed? as a past form used for another nautical expression:

pay: to slacken (as a rope) and allow to run out

For the everyday sense of pay as remuneration, the past tense is paid.

Two other common verbs ending in -ay that also change the y to i in the past are say and lay:

say/said/have said
lay/laid/have laid

Full post as published by Daily Writing Tips on February 24, 2010 (boomark / email).