Narathiwat, the most south easterly of Thailand’s provinces, is most often in the news because of a long-standing insurgency, but a regular correspondent tells me that a BBC World News report claims three rivers have overflown their banks in the province.
This conjures up the most wonderful mental images.
The standard past tense and participle of flow and its compounds is of course flowed, while flown is the past participle of the verb fly (with past tense flew).
January 11, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Okay,Graham but OED3 as recently as last November had a draft revision not treating ‘overflown’ as otherwise than a current and standard albeit variant usage with ample quotes of its use:
“= overflowed adj.
1579 W. Wilkinson Confut. Familye of Loue b j b, Whosoeuer feadeth of the ouerflowne word‥eateth truely the flesh of Christ.
1653 R. G. tr. Bacon Nat. & Exper. Hist. Winds 96 Vapours out of the Sea and Rivers, and over-flowne Marishes.
c1680 T. Bowrey Geogr. Acct. Countries Bay of Bengal 322 All that piece of land whereon standeth the Pallace‥is a great deale higher and not at all Overflowne.
1707–12 J. Mortimer Whole Art Husb. (1721) I. 217 Foul Flood, as overflown Hay, Grass rotted by the long standing of Water on it in wet Summers.
1818 R. Southey in Q. Rev. 19 6 Crossing an overflown stream on the way to Boulogne.
1925 A. Lowell What’s O’clock 216 He rides, I believe, alongside an overflown river, By a path soft and easy to his charger’s feet.
1982 Assoc. Press (Nexis) 26 July, Soldiers, policemen and firemen continued search-and-rescue operations for people feared buried under mud from overflown rivers.
December 31, 2011 at 12:39 pm
This introduces a plaesngily rational point of view.