Mark Twain passage of boat, was a measure on the sounding line. Twain is an archaic term for "two", as in "The veil of the temple was rent in twain." The riverboatman's cry was "mark twain" or, more fully, "by the mark twain", meaning "according to the mark [on the line], [the depth is] two [fathoms]", that is, "The water is deep and it is safe to pass." Twain said that his famous pen name was not entirely his invention. In "Life on the Mississippi", he wrote: Captain Isaiah Sellers was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to jot
Old English grammar increased the number of weak verbs, so that in modern English weak verbs are the most numerous and productive form, although occasionally a weak verb may turn into a strong verb through the process of analogy, such as "sneak" (originally only a noun), where "snuck" is an analogical formation rather than a survival from Old English. There are three major classes of weak verbs in Old English. The first class displays i-mutation in the root, and the second class none. There is also a third class explained below. Class-one verbs with short roots exhibit gemination of the final stem consonant