Thread by @foundbysara

okay so a neat thing about QUENCH is that it's an extant causative form of a word that no longer exists in English!

https://twitter.com/MortuaryReport/status/1509252803826434048

to understand what's going on here, the first thing we need to establish are causative verbs

A causative verb is a verb that, well... causes (or makes!) something.

For example, if you ELECTRIFY something, you make it electric. If you UGLIFY something, you make it ugly.

(we see -IFY as a causative signal in less obvious settings, too!

Think about PACIFY=make calm, VERIFY=make true, DEIFY=make god)

There are also causative/non-causative verb pairs that aren't obviously derived from each other

if you SHOW someone, you cause them to SEE

If you TEACH someone, you cause them to LEARN

If you FEED someone, you cause them to EAT!

The next thing I wanna talk about is irregular (or "strong") and regular ("weak") verbs.

Strong verbs are the ones with weird past tenses that you had to memorize in grade school.

SINK—SANK—SUNK
DRINK—DRANK—DRUNK
STINK—STANK—STUNK
WRING—WRANG—WRUNG
HANG—HUNG—HUNG

RISE—ROSE—RISEN
FALL—FELL—FALLEN
SIT—SET—SET
LIE—LAY—LAIN
DRIVE—DROVE—DRIVEN
GROW—GREW—GROWN
BLOW—BLEW—BLOWN
TAKE—TOOK—TAKEN
SHAKE—SHOOK—SHAKEN

...you get it!

Strong verbs tend to be really old! They've been part of English (and middle English, and old English, and anglo-frisian, and West Germanic, and...) for a long time!

When we invent new verbs, we tend to make 'em simple.

(No one's out here claiming the past participle of "milkshake duck" is something wild like "milkshake dacken," you know?)

anyway, the point is that these strong verbs have a history. a heritage. They've got a story.

SINK comes to us from Old English SINCAN (...SANC, SUNCEN)

DRINK comes from DRINCAN (...DRANC, DRUNCEN)

STINK from STINCAN, WRING from WRINGAN,

RISE from RISAN (...RAS, RISEN), FALL from FEALLAN (...FEOLL, FEALLEN), SIT from SITTAN (...SÆT, SETEN), LIE from LICGAN (..LÆG, LEGEN), DRIVE from DRIFAN (...DRAF, DRIFEN), GROW from GROWAN (...GREOW, GROWEN) etc, etc

you can start to see some patterns!

So where we today might -IFY a verb if we wanted to signal it was causative, the languages Modern English descended from had their own signals

and long story short (too late?): two of those signals were 1.) Changing vowel sounds and 2.) Making the new verb weak instead of strong

and without getting too deep in the weeds of historical linguistics here, both the original verbs and the derived causative verbs slowly evolved into Modern English

Language changes in a lot of ways, and those words don't always mean exactly the same thing they used to...

But they're recognisable! There are patterns!

Looking again at our strong verb list above, we've got some familiar friends

what do you do if you want something to RISE? You RAISE (RAISED—RAISED) it.

What if you want to cause a tree to FALL? You FELL (FELLED—FELLED) it!

Here's one that's been fossilized in legal language: you might say that an apple HUNG from a tree, but the state HANGED a man

(HANG—HANGED—HANGED)

(I made a typo here, SIT should be SIT—SAT—SAT)

(it's not a great spot to have made a typo, because I'm about to break a pattern a little bit, but stick with me)

https://twitter.com/foundbysara/status/1509329242072530946?t=WCJXtVYkV43ACoaHGzO-eQ&s=19

You SIT on the chair. Yesterday you SAT there, too . You have SAT there every day for a long time.

You have an apple. You SET it on the chair. You SET it there yesterday, too. You have SET it there every day for a long time.

regular: SIT—SAT—SAT
causative: SET—SET—SET

same thing with LIE!

You LIE on the bed. You LAY there yesterday, too. You've LAIN there every day for a long time.

You LAY the blanket on the bed. You LAID it there yesterday, too. You've LAID it there every day for a long time.

regular: LIE—LAY—LAIN
causative LAY—LAID—LAID

okay, so here's where it gets really fun

like I said earlier, language changes over time, and the modern words that descended from stuff like WRINGAN don't always have a one-to-one meaning correlation with their ancestors

but we've got patterns to look at, and they're gonna help us out here

you might WRING a washcloth, but if you were mad you could WRENCH it out if someone else's hands

you trash can could STINK. You might even say it's had a STENCH.

sometimes one word, or the other, didn't make it all the way to the future when we are today

remember SINK—SANK—SUNK?

well, once upon a time, if you were to make something SINK, you would... SENCH it

en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/sench

So! if you QUENCH a flame and make it disappear...

or QUENCH your thirst and cause it to go away...

well, it sure would be cool if QUINK meant disappear, wouldn't it?

I have great news:

It did.

en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/cwincan

SENCH: to make SINK
QUENCH: to make QUINK

which brings me, at long last, to my favorite joke in the English language:

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't DRENCH it.