Forecast and broadcast
"Forecast" and "broadcast" are compounds of that marvellous old English verb, to cast, which occurs so many times in the King James Bible. People were always casting seeds on stony ground, or casting stones at each other, or casting someone out into the stony wilderness. Importantly, it's one of those verbs that doesn't change in its different tenses:
Today I cast a stone; yesterday I cast a stone; in the past I have cast a stone.
And the same is true of its compounds, yet some writers persist in adding a cacophonous "ed" to form the past tense or the past participle. An example of this incorrect practice is seen the Globe and Mail of 19 August, 2011. But it's not their error this time: they are quoting verbatim from a report advocating cuts to the military establishment.
... [S]upport to the front-line deployable units is cut far more than originally forecasted.
This should read:
... [S]upport to the front-line deployable units is cut far more then originally forecast.
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Today I cast a stone; yesterday I cast a stone; in the past I have cast a stone.
And the same is true of its compounds, yet some writers persist in adding a cacophonous "ed" to form the past tense or the past participle. An example of this incorrect practice is seen the Globe and Mail of 19 August, 2011. But it's not their error this time: they are quoting verbatim from a report advocating cuts to the military establishment.
... [S]upport to the front-line deployable units is cut far more than originally forecasted.
This should read:
... [S]upport to the front-line deployable units is cut far more then originally forecast.
Return to Language page