That word would be covered under the “final s” rule as simply “bless’d,” which is how most of us pronounce it today.

My supposition is that we have retained /id/ pronunciations for certain words like ‘blessèd’ because of the continuing impact of the King James Bible and the old hymns (and poems) that need the extra syllable to scan properly.

If I remember correctly, ALL simple past tense words were formerly pronounced with the last syllable as /id/.
English speakers are notorious for eventually eliding sounds if they can possibly get away with it.

I wasn’t able to find any support online for my thesis, but maybe someone else has additional information, or a refutation.

Thank you for the tip about using Reader to read Fox News. It has also worked for me when the Washington Times used to only let me read a certain number of articles; with Reader I could keep reading new articles. 🙂

Shocked.

Shocked.

–neo

French has more sounds not in English than English has which are not in French. And there are tricky rules, like the -ed business, for how words are pronounced.

Still, I’d prefer to be learning French as an English speaker rather than the other way around. French has its messiness in sounds and meaning, but nothing like English.

You are looking more and more like a troll every day karmi.