Answer: "welcomed" not "welcame"

[chiroho.livejournal.com]

Question: akasha_lilian asks ‘Why is it "welcomed" and not "welcame"?’

Since "come" is part of the world "welcome", why would the past tense of “welcome” not be “welcame”?

The simple difference is that, while it may seem as though “welcome” and “come” are related in the sense that they are both verbs they have different etymologies. According to Etymology Online, the “come” in "welcome" does share a base with "come" -- the Old English cuman -- but "welcome" evolved from the noun form cuma ("guest"), while "come" is from the verb form cuman ("approach"). "Welcome" is from willa ("pleasure", "desire", "choice") + cuma ("guest"). This gives the origin of "welcome" as "one whose coming is in accord with another's will".

Because "welcome" has its origins in the noun form, even though it later started being used as a verb, it does not follow the irregular past tense of the verb. So the rules used for the simple past tense of the two words are different.

Being a regular verb, the rule for forming the past tense of a word ending in ‘e’ is to add ‘d’ to the end. Hence “welcome” becomes “welcomed”. So in a discussion of a future event:

"Mother and I welcome you to our Thanksgiving dinner,” Ducky said graciously.

Becomes:

Tony ignored the fact that Ziva and McGee welcomed his arrival in the bullpen with some very snide remarks about how he was dressed.

As an irregular verb, “come” does not follow the same rule. All that happens is that the infinitive “come” has the simple past tense “came”.

So it’s as simple as that. “Welcome” is a regular verb, in this instance, and hence the rules for past tense of regular verbs apply. Which is why “welcome” becomes “welcomed”.

Comments

[akasha-lilian.livejournal.com]

I don't even remember this question anymore, but thank you so much for answering it! =) The ethymology was really interesting! Should any of my English students ask again why it's not welcame I'll be prepared. :D

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

I hadn't wondered why it was 'welcome' not 'welcame' as it just hadn't occurred to me, but that was interesting. The origins of words are fascinating!