| -ee | eak/each | ight | ought/aught… | Notes |
|
| wreak |
| wrought | Thinking about this is what started this whole table. |
| see | seek | sight | sought | Here’s a nice complete version. |
|
| teach | [tight???] | taught | Variation of -ch and -k. All would have been like a Scottish or German ch back in the day (where BITD means late medieval period mas o menos). |
| may | [meek???] | might |
| (I’ll note here that “ought” seems like avoir in the French to have become merely an “ending” as a modal verb.) |
| buy |
| bight | bought | (Is this why Microsoft picked “Bing™” as their search engine name? Get that subliminal “Buy! buy! buy!” message in there.) I’m having trouble envisioning a semantic connection between “bight” and buying. Anyone? |
| vie (fie?) |
| fight | fought |
|
|
| catch |
| caught |
|
|
| think |
| thought | I suspect that an original -in- shifted to an -ee- , lengthening in compensation for dropping the n, but I may have it backwards. |
|
| drink |
| draught | Aha! Why draught is spelt as it is! |
|
| sink |
| shaft | Mining on the brain? |
|
| bring | [bright???] | brought | Here, the -ink has softened into an -ing. |
|
|
| light | laughter | I would love for these to be connected. Too good to be true? |
| plea |
| plight |
|
|
| flee |
| flight |
|
|
| knee |
| knight |
| Knights kneel to be knighted. “Kinn-nigget” isn’t a bad approximation of the BITD pronunciation. |
| [free???] fray | freak | fright | fraught | “Freak” is speculative because it’s awfully nouny, and everything in its column so far is solidly in the verb camp. |
Blue indicates speculations. Red things that on semantic grounds don't seem to belong. I came up with this before (while?) falling asleep the other night. Its sense may be naught.
