Speeded vs. Sped [closed]

I think "speeded" may have been the appropriate past-tense form for "to speed" in the past, but I wonder if it is still considered the correct form. In spoken English, one usually hears "sped" to communicate the same past action.

This might also be the case with "dived" and "dove," as one rarely hears the former.

Solution 1:

The usage stats from the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English look as follows:

               COCA     BNC

speeded.[v*]    259     149
sped.[v*]      1607     302

So sped is preferred over speeded on both sides of the pond, though considerably more so in the US. The interesting part is this, however:

               COCA     BNC

speeded up      178     139
sped up         324       8

That is, when it comes to the phrasal verb to speed up, the preference is not anywhere as strong in the US, and is outright reversed in the UK.

As to usage over time, the Corpus of Historical American English paints the following picture:

^{(X axis: year, Y axis: incidences per million words.)}

So sped has been preferred over speeded for as long as the corpus data goes back.

Generally speaking, irregular verbs tend to become regular over time, rather than the other way round, though the latter is not unheard of, either. However, the more heavily used an irregular verb is, the less likely it is to change. (That is true of other irregular words, too—for example, you won't see childs superseding children any time soon.)

Dived vs. dove has been discussed elsewhere on this site. See also these related questions:

• Dreamed vs. dreamt, lighted vs. lit, leaped vs. lept
• Spelled vs. spelt
• Learned vs. learnt

Solution 2:

The past participles (and past tenses) "speeded" and "sped" are used in different grammatical situations. When "speed" is an intransitive verb, the past tense is almost invariably "sped". When "speed" is a transitive verb, the past tense is usually "speeded" (although "sped" is being increasingly used in this situation).

Consider the Google Ngram for "speeded/sped down the road". It's almost always "sped". Now, compare the Google Ngram for "speeded/sped the process". It's usually "speeded", although "sped" is now becoming more common.