Slay Slayed

This post is about something trivial, but intensely irritating: the use of slayed as the past tense of  to slay, meaning to kill. This is a stumbling block for me. When I come across it in a story I trip and fall flat, or rather the story does. In my mind, the proper past tense of to slay is slew. This is a molehill I will die on.

The dictionary agrees with me, at least to a point. According to Miriam-Webster the preferred past tense of to slay is slew. Slayed is also acceptable, but primarily for the modern use of to slay meaning to amuse. The joke slayed. The knight slew.

I think my biggest objection to slayed is context. Slayed is a more modern form then slew, but slay is an archaic word. You slay your enemies with a sword. You slay dragons. When was the last time you saw a dragon? They don’t exist in the modern world. Neither, for the most part do swords. When was the last time you saw someone walk down the street wearing one? These things belong mostly in the past, and so does slay. It’s a great word to use in stories set in the imagined past, but it should use its ancient, irregular forms. If you want to use slayed in a modern story where contemporary characters speak in contemporary language, it might make sense. In a story set in some imagined past, or a secondary world loosely modeled on some past era, use slew.

In Swords & Sorcery Magazine I don’t publish stories set in the modern world. I publish ‘pre-industrial fantasy’—loosely, stories set in worlds with technology that doesn’t exceed the highest level of technology found on Earth around 1800. That would be sailing ships and flint-locks, but not railroads and revolvers. Those stories might be sword and sorcery, high fantasy, or historicals with fantasy elements, but in any case, slayed would be out of place. Instead of slayed write killed, murdered, massacred, dispatched, eliminated, disemboweled, decapitated…or slew.