Smelt/smell

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01cite10Anonymous12cite10Read the following in a book review:12br
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10"As Richard Perren says, the meat industy has smelled like11del11font10d12font12del10 money for a long time11font10.12font10"12br

0 Yo Rob02br
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00Smelt is indeed correct. Why? Because your sentence makes use of 'has', which is a verb. For instance: "He smelled the roses"; "He has smelt the roses".02br
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00Spongebob0-

0 Hi Spongebob02br
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00I would use 01i00smell02i00 as a regular verb. That means saying "01i00He 01b00smelled02b00 the roses02i00" and "01i00He 01b00has smelled02b00 the roses02i00" would both be completely grammatical in the US. 050010id5

0Hmm, 01i00He smelt the roses02i00 is also correct right?02br
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00And, this is the first time I have heard of the word 'smelled''..050010id3

0 Hi Spectacled-Girl02br
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00Since I'm American, I can only assume that 01i00smelt02i00 is the past participle form of the verb 01i00to smell02i00 used in British English. The Oxford and Cambridge Dictionaries list both 01i00smelled02i00 and 01i00smelt02i00.02br
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Smelt is an alternative to smelled and is preferable, though not obligatory, in British English. At the end of the day, the sound difference is only between [t] and [d]. The verbs that follow a this pattern of having regular / irregular alternatives with this t/d sound ending are:
infinitive irreg past tense and participle regular past tense and participle

Smelled is correct and the "preferred" use of the past tense of smell, but in his excellent dissertation on *** versus science, Albert Einstein twice used the word "smelt" as the past tense of smell. Microsoft word check did not identify it as either a spelling or a grammatical error.



Having been raised in Kentucky, we used the word smelt frequently. Living in the southwest,

The past perfect tense of the verb 'to smell' is either' smelled' or 'smelt' in the English language as used in the UK and throughout the English speaking world with the exception of The US (and sometimes Canada)

When the Americans devised (or is that devized) their own dictionary to diffentiate themselves from the English they simplified these irregualr verb endings onlly to use to

I believe "smelt" is correct, as used in the sentence "I reckon I knew Cletus was fixing to need a bath when I smelt him clear across the 'tater field".

As a copy editor I'd keep it as "smelled." Putting "smelt" in there causes the typical AmE user to stop at an unfamiliar word, and "smelled" is acceptable.