word choice - Is this correct grammar: "[...] cash can't be beat."


I found the following phrase in a NYTimes article and I was pretty surprised that it wasn't corrected or edited out: "But when it comes to privacy and freedom, cash can't be beat.".


I am under the impression that this is incorrect grammar and the sentence should actually be "[...] cash can't be beaten." or "[...] you can't beat cash" but definitely not the one used in the article. Am I wrong here?


This sort of grammar is mostly only used in slang in England and I always thought that it was wrong but after a bit of googling, I'm not sure anymore. Is it just another difference between American and British English? I know it's really petty but I'm still interested in the answer!


Article link: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/04/bringing-dollars-and-cents-into-this-century/a-shift-toward-digital-currency



Answer



The form can't be beat isn't "ungrammatical". In X can't be Y[ed], Y is a past participle, but most people accept both beat and beaten as valid past participles. As this NGram shows, can't be beat is far more common than can't be beaten, and becoming more so every year.


One reason for this is that beat is "simple past" ("I beat him yesterday") as well as "present" ("He cries when I beat him"), and irregular verbs like this are always susceptible to shifts in usage.


With regular verbs such as "Cash can't be ignored", the past participle is always the same as simple past ("I ignored him yesterday"), so there's no scope for confusion caused by shifting usage.


Taking another irregular verb where the past participle differs from simple past, we can mimic OP's construction with, for example...



Matricide can't be forgiven.



I'm not aware of any dialects where forgave would be acceptable here. Even speakers who've never heard of the term "past participle" know when they need to use one.


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