I was knit a sweater

Question

Can to knit be used in this passive structure? The meaning I want this sentence to have is Someone knit a sweater to for me.

I was knit a sweater.

I know that to give can be used in this passive structure, for example:

▪︎ I was given a toy.

*Knit is one of the words that can remain the same in past, presence and future (called 'uninflected tense'). Knit is an irregular verb, being that the past participle word 'knitted' is also correct. Use of the past tense verbs 'had' or 'have' is appropriate when the word sequence is 'had knit' or 'have knit' (which is past tense).* — FumbleFingers, Feb 01 '23 at 14:30
See: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/332112/i-was-cooked-fried-roasted-boiled-onions and https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/332107/i-was-shaven-my-moustache — MarcInManhattan, Feb 01 '23 at 21:53
I would more likely say this in the active voice: “Someone knitted a sweater for me” or “Someone knitted me a sweater.” Passive is grammatically correct too, though. — Davislor, Feb 01 '23 at 22:24
@RonJohn Correct: hit is an irregular verb, and there is no such word as *hitted. The third-person simple past tense of `knit can be either knitted or knit. , so OP’s use of knit was correct too. I am more likely to say knit as a past participle, personally, but that also can be either was knitted or was knit. — Davislor, Feb 02 '23 at 16:46
@Davislor "some speakers will model the Past Tense after He hit me yesterday". Exactly. "Knit" sounds like "hit", so you use the same rules (except when you don't). — RonJohn, Feb 02 '23 at 17:09
@RonJon Because it sounds like sit, the past tense should be knat? :) — Davislor, Feb 02 '23 at 21:19
@Davislor that's where "(except when you don't)" comes into force. — RonJohn, Feb 03 '23 at 22:29
I'm not sure of the official grammar, but to me, "she knit me" or "I was knit a sweater" sounds like you're the object being knitted! — nick012000, Feb 04 '23 at 12:27

FumbleFingers · Answer 1 · 2023-02-01T16:03:55.930

15

Collins dictionary unequivocally asserts that the Past Participle is always knitted, but they have a "usage note" saying that knit as a Past Tense is acceptable in the context of bones that knit together (in the past).

I think Collins is simply wrong, and here's a usage chart to support my position...

There's nothing inherently wrong with using the passive as per OP's example, which (Collins notwithstanding) is perfectly valid using knit or knitted. There's no doubt the verb is "defective", but some speakers will model the Past Tense after He hit me yesterday where others match it to He fitted the catflap yesterday.

Apologies for using an image, but here's usingenglish.com...

...and here's a final word from grammar.com...

...officially and especially in UK English¹, “knitted” is just as correct as “knit” in past tense, both in past simple and in past participle. Formed by adding “-ed” after doubling the last consonant, “knitted” is equally frequently used in the English vocabulary as “knit” in past tense, and there is no restriction or context that requires the use of one or the other version.

¹ I have no evidence (or "gut feel") that there's any significant BrE/AmE usage split here, so I don't necessarily endorse that assertion.

edited Feb 01 '23 at 16:03

answered Feb 01 '23 at 14:59

FumbleFingers

70,966
4
97
196

1

No, the Collins does not unequivocally assert what you claim. The Collins says this: LANGUAGE NOTE:
The past tense can be either knit or knitted for meaning [sense 4]. – Lambie Feb 01 '23 at 15:05
2

That is exactly what I'm saying. But (1) - I don't accept that *knit* can *only* be a valid Past Tense with that specific meaning, and (2) - I'm happy to use *knit* as a Past Participle as well (which Collins doesn't endorse at all). – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 15:11
1

@FumbleFingers, sorry for raising this storm, and well done for persevering with the issue. For my part, I had just chosen a dictionary so I was basing my answer on more than my own opinion. Next time, I'll hesitate before choosing Collins! Having read your answer, I agree with you fully :) – Peter Kirkpatrick Feb 01 '23 at 19:03
@PeterKirkpatrick: Ty, I appreciate the acknowledgement. But I can't deny that for learners, your answer is more suitable. It's a reversal of what usually happens with me on ELL (I say something is "too obscure" for most learners to bother with, and people wade in with That's patronising! Learners should be told everything!). But I just couldn't let the Collins assertions stand unchallenged, even if this wasn't the best place to shout the odds. I haven't gone into this in maximum detail yet, but it looks possible this is an irregular verb gaining traction (not "going extinct"). – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 19:43
As a follow up question, I'm conscious that I'm relatively new to this site. Is there any sort of consensus or advice as to which ELL sources and authorities are best to use? – Peter Kirkpatrick Feb 01 '23 at 21:59
Collins is usually good, so I wouldn't take one "lapse" too much to heart. I have the feeling that the online edition leans more to current than historical usages - which is no bad thing for most learners (who are keen to learn and use English in the modern world), but not so good if you're trying to read classic English literature when it's not your mother tongue! Anyway, welcome to the club where you've obviously got off to a cracking start (in just a few weeks, I see). Check out Resources for learning English on meta. – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 22:38
Not sure if this link to the chatroom will work, but mod gotube says there I think our collection of Resources for Learning English is worth highlighting, as well as StoneyB's awesome Canonical Post #2: What is the perfect, and how should I use it? – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 22:53
We haven't seen StoneyB for a while, but he was the guvnor, as they say. And he was gracious enough to christen and link to FumbleFingers‘ Perfect Truism in his (truly awesome) Canonical post. – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 22:58
1

The usage chart would be more interesting, in my opinion, if you had included "sweater was knitted" and "sweater was knit". I suspect that the difference in knit/knitted frequency between "she knit/knitted me ..." and "bones knit/knitted" might have more to do with what is being knitted (clothing vs bones) than whether you're looking at a participle or a simple past. I also do believe that there's a US/UK distinction afoot here. I am not American, and I would always use "knitted". To me, "she knit" as a past tense feels just as foreign as "she spit" as the past tense. – Dawood ibn Kareem Feb 02 '23 at 04:56
@DawoodibnKareem: I'm already pushing NGrams to the limit with the my 3-4 word search strings. There aren't enough matches to drill down into US/UK corpuses separately, or to add an extra word to the search strings. – FumbleFingers Feb 02 '23 at 11:33
...BELAY THAT! I just ran off this usage chart comparing "sweater was knitted" and "sweater was knit" as you suggested. There aren't enough hits to chart just the UK corpus, but I realised I can meaningfully compare "ALL English" with "US English"... – FumbleFingers Feb 02 '23 at 11:38
...where obviously the difference between the ALL link and the US link above is basically the UK corpus anyway. If you look at those two charts, you'll see that in the US-only version, *sweater was knit* has overtaken *sweater was knitted* in the last two decades. This hasn't happened in the ALL corpus - presumably because there's a marked preference in BrE for the regular form *knitted, which is just enough to shift the usage trend. In short, against all expectations, it seems was knit* is gaining, not losing traction - and this is primarily driven by AmE, not BrE. – FumbleFingers Feb 02 '23 at 11:47
An additional point in favour of using knit as a past participle: a community may be tight-knit or close-knit, but unless we’re in a parallel universe where shawls and sweaters form communities, I’ve personally never come across a tight-knitted or close-knitted community. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 02 '23 at 15:38
@JanusBahsJacquet: That point was also raised by @MichaelHarvey. I didn't take it any further because by the time I read that I was already thinking that whereas my perspective here (that Collins made a mistake) was "interesting" (to the likes of me, you, and Michael), it wasn't necessarily helpful for most learners. – FumbleFingers Feb 02 '23 at 16:07
...Anyway, since I know you're a dab hand at "etymological research", is there any chance you can look into whether this is an example of *irregular verb gaining traction?* Ever since I read Pinker's book about irregular verbs many years ago, I've assumed they're (nearly?) always dying out, not coming to life. I'd quite like to see this one kicked around a bit on ELU. – FumbleFingers Feb 02 '23 at 16:11
2

@FumbleFingers In OE, it was a weak verb (class I, subclass III, which means it had the regular, weak -de ending in the past tense, but because the stem ends in /t/, that was assimilated into -te, so the past and present forms were largely identical: 1sg cnytte. The participle ended regularly in -ed, though: (ġe)cnytted. Already in ME, these start getting mixed up, with both past knytted from the participle and participle (y)knyt from the past appearing, and this has continued to the present. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 02 '23 at 16:47
The same applies to fit. I find it odd when Americans write something like "I tried the jeans on and they fit me", where I would use fitted for the past tense. – Kate Bunting Feb 02 '23 at 17:51
@KateBunting: Perhaps I should have used an example like He kitted* the team out in the new strip yesterday, rather than ...fitted the cat-clap.* – FumbleFingers Feb 02 '23 at 18:04

minseong · Answer 2 · 2023-02-02T14:52:49.363

Your sentence is perfect, and means exactly what you intended it to mean.

It sounds even more acceptable to me than "I was knitted a sweater" (which other posters are suggesting you to use based on what Collins dictionary says about knit's conjugations).

When I read the title before opening your question, I understood that it means Someone knit a sweater for me. I thought an English learner had read this sentence somewhere and was asking about how to understand this passive construction, which is extra confusing as far as passives go because the verb has irregular conjugations and variable transitivity. But actually you created it - awesome!

Most people seem to find knitted more acceptable though, rather than knit, so you may want to change it. I was surprised by the Collins dictionary entry and the top answer and comments here, I didn't know I'm apparently in a small minority for never inflecting knit.

Apparently the past tense form of this verb is sexist.

It also seems to depend on what you knit! https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=she+knit+her+brows%2Cshe+knitted+her+brows%2C+he+knit+his+brows%2C+he+knitted+his+brows&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 — chasly - supports Monica, Feb 03 '23 at 20:48

PLL · Answer 3 · 2023-02-03T08:43:24.393

9

No, you shouldn’t say this. Some native speakers might say it, but most would find it awkward, and it’s a bit nonstandard.

There are two independent issues here:

should the past participle be knit or knitted?
can you use the structure I was given a sweater (the “ditransitive passive”) with knit[ted]?

Other answers treat the first question well: the traditional standard past participle in most contexts is knitted, but knit is also common, so I wouldn’t call it wrong.

However the ditransitive passive form doesn’t work with knit. Your example I was given a sweater is fine; but this form works better with some verbs than others. Verbs like this that can take two direct objects (as in Sue gave me a sweater, Sue knit me a sweater) are called ditransitive, and they generally fall into two classes according whether the first object can be rephrased with to (like Sue gave a sweater to me) or with for (like Sue knitted a sweater for me). The passive form Tom was VERBed a NOUN is generally standard with to-type ditransitives, but not with for-type ditransitives. So you can say I was given a cake, I was sent flowers, I was offered a loan, but NOT I was baked a cake, I was ordered flowers, I was arranged a loan. And as Peter Kirkpatrick’s answer notes, ditransitive knit is a for-type, not a to-type.

Passives of for-type ditransitives aren’t completely wrong — they do occur in native speaker usage — but they are rare, and usually feel awkward. Going to a very authoritative reference, Huddleston and Pullum (Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, 2002, Ch.4 §4.3 Ditransitive clauses) write “many speakers find [examples like I was ordered a book] marginally possible”.

edited Feb 03 '23 at 08:43

answered Feb 02 '23 at 12:33

PLL

873
7
13

3

The perfect answer -- it even explains why I (a native speaker) was uncertain about the validity of the OP's sentence. – TonyK Feb 02 '23 at 14:20
4

Huh, never thought about the difference between to- and for-type transitives here. Even with the for type, though, it seems to me there are differences – for example, I find “I was knit(ted) a sweater” and “I was baked a cake” completely unremarkable, but “I was ordered flowers” is a bit odd, and “I was arranged a loan” is completely impossible to me, and I had to do a fair bit of mental gymnastics to even get the meaning. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 02 '23 at 15:45
1

@JanusBahsJacquet: Agreed about the variation between verbs, though my intuition for the specific examples is different from yours — for me “knitted” and “baked” are no better than “ordered”. The cited section in CGEL also notes this, saying “Ditransitive verbs vary considerable in how readily they occur in passive clauses”, and discusses some more subtleties about what can affect the acceptability of different cases — but they present the to-/for- division as the main factor, and that fits my intuition + experience well. – PLL Feb 02 '23 at 15:55
What about "I was made a cake." That seems fine to me. – chasly - supports Monica Feb 03 '23 at 00:53
2

@chasly-supportsMonica I think it really depends on speaker. I find "arranged a loan" impossible, "baked a cake" and "knit a sweater not great but not problematic and "ordered flowers" unexceptionable. And "made a cake" is worse for me than "baked a cake". Looking at usage data would probably be necessary and chances are there would be regional variations. The knit/vs. knitted graphs are quite interesting in another answer here. – DRF Feb 03 '23 at 12:28

score 7 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 01 '23 at 19:45

7

Yes, the verb to knit can be used in a passive sense. However we need to tidy up your grammar, which is not correct.

Collins Dictionary gives these words as the tenses of knit:

knits (present tense)
knitting (present participle)
knitted (past tense and past participle)

Collins does list one example where the past tense can be 'knit' or knitted', but this is the technical sense of broken bones knitting back together.

So for your basic example (assuming we are talking about knitting done in the past) we would say, "Someone knitted a sweater."

Also, we would say "knitted a sweater for me" (not to me). If you're not sure why, search for articles on indirect objects in a sentence.

So the full sentence becomes "Someone knitted a sweater for me." Then we can change the form of the sentence from active to passive like this:

"The sweater was knitted (by X) for me."

You can also say:

"I was knitted a sweater."

...which has the same grammar as "I was given a sweater." It means that I was the one for whom the sweater was knitted.

edited Feb 01 '23 at 19:45

FumbleFingers

70,966
4
97
196

answered Feb 01 '23 at 14:05

Peter Kirkpatrick

1,840
2
10

11

I don't like to disagree with Collins, but I'm fine with *knit* as both past tense (Nan knit me a sweater last year) and past participle (She has knit me a sweater every year). I haven't gone looking, but I'm quite sure I could find plenty of examples to support my position heree. – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 14:43
3

Sweater of ages, knit for me, let me warm myself in thee! – Michael Harvey Feb 01 '23 at 14:44
4

@FumbleFingers As a Southern English RP speaker, born among Cockneys, I would find 'a sweater knit for me' a little stilted and old-fashioned, although I am OK with e.g. 'a close-knit (or tight-knit) family'. – Michael Harvey Feb 01 '23 at 14:56
1

Collins: LANGUAGE NOTE:
The past tense can be either knit or knitted for meaning [sense 4]. This answer does not deserve a dv. – Lambie Feb 01 '23 at 15:06
1

@MichaelHarvey: Absolutely! My nan knit me this sweater is "a little stilted and old-fashioned" to me too. But Collins is way out of line not even recognizing that the usage exists (and I certainly wouldn't call it "archaic" or "obsolete", so there's no excuse on that front). – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 15:36
@FumbleFingers - off-topic, I know, and maybe I'm revealing a disagreeable side of myself, but I do get all riled up when I see in newspapers stuff like 'Nan aged 80 in car crash', 'Mary Smith, the mum of three boys, was charged with shoplifting', etc. What happened to 'grandmother', 'mother', etc? – Michael Harvey Feb 01 '23 at 15:48
@MichaelHarvey: The one that got on my tits a few days ago (Guardian or BBC, I don't recall) was *Father of one shot dead. I've always understood Mother / Father of N* as a kind of "sympathy-grabbing" device to make us think about all those *N* children who lost a parent. But when *N=1* it kinda "cheapens" it. – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 16:01
@FumbleFingers I was taken aback as a boy to read of a 'mother of nine' in my old man's Daily Express. – Michael Harvey Feb 01 '23 at 16:08
@MichaelHarvey: My old man was a father of five (who had twelve siblings, making Grandpa a father of thirteen, though I never met him), so I wouldn't have seen anything particularly odd about nine. – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 16:16
2

@FumbleFingers - I meant I read 'a mother of nine' like 'a boy of nine'. – Michael Harvey Feb 01 '23 at 16:18
1

Ooops! I didn't even see that parsing! – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 16:20
@FumbleFingers - my dear Mama said that while girls of nine had been known to give birth, the figure was much more likely to refer to the number of offspring. – Michael Harvey Feb 01 '23 at 16:38
Returning to the actual subject here.... it occurs to me that if we had a migration route for sending questions from ELL to ELU I would definitely vote for that here. On the KISS principle, learners would probably be better off believing Collins, and treating *to knit* as a regular verb. But even though you say you find the irregular past forms stilted / old-fashioned, that's a long way from saying they're "invalid". I can see I won't get much support for my position here, but at least on ELU I think I'd get more help putting the boot in on that Collins "howler"! :) – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 16:52
I just made a "non-edit" to your answer so I could reverse my downvote (which was really a fit of pique aimed at Collins; I can't argue with the wisdom of learners following your advice! :) – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '23 at 19:47

I was knit a sweater

4 Answers4

Linked