> Oh boy! A word I've never heard or seen or smelt before ever... "preterite"! I haven't seen a really new word in two years. What's it mean? Can you give an example using it in context? And while I'm being nosy Dar... What's your background that you know all this interesting stuff? *grin*

"Preterite" is just a fancy word for "past-tense," really. It's a bit more specific than that, but since in English the imperfect tense is compound (e.g., "I used to go," "I used to do," etc.), practically any indicative past verb form is preterite: "I went," "I did," and so forth.