Zeev:
You certainly do keep me on my toes.
I think we are mixing up some similar words here:
1. wring is what you do when you twist a wet towel to get the water out of it. Also what you do to a chicken's neck when you want to have it for dinner. The past participle is wrung. (one of those non-French constructions which changes the vowel rather than adding -ed).
2. wrought according to my dictionary is not a participle of wring or any other verb, but is a pure adjective, as in wrought iron. This didn't make any sense to me, since it sounds so clearly participial (is that a word?), so I looked it up in Fowler's. Fowler says that wrought is the past participle of the verb work. I knew this had to be at least an archaic form, but I wasn't sure what the parent verb was. Fowler tells us it is work. Most of us remember it in the phrase, "What hath God wrought.", which I think was the first message sent in Morse code by telegraphy (don't hold me to that reference).
3. I don't doubt that a special use in Mettalurgy (wring/wrought) was common, although perhaps not approved by Fowler!
4. The wright construction I have only seen in some proper names and archaic job descriptions: Boatwright, wheelwright, cartwright. I knew a boy in VA as a child whose name was Drumwright.
Zeev, I found a website which summarizes a lot of this stuff, especially with homophones, which we seem to be focusing on.
amered.com
Best regards,
Jack |
