Snuck vs Sneaked (Page 1 of 8)

Although "snuck" is now an accepted alternative to "sneaked," I'm old school and won't use it (in non-dialogue writing, anyway). Same goes for "alright" instead of "all right." Thanks for the link. Can you think of other examples of previously unacceptable words that have wormed their way into the lexicon?

A little like the British 'Snigger/sniggered' versus the US 'Snicker/Snickered' and the 'leapt' or 'leaped' thing; some words have snuck in by the back-door and others have sneaked back out.

Having distinct US colloquial origins, to a British/English ear the word 'snuck' evokes sensations of banjo music and hillbilly imagery. I don't even know if snuck is acknowledged as a real word outside of the US?

    The thief sneaked out of the back door.

     The assailant snuck out the back door.

Snuck is dumb except within hillbilly dialogue.

snuck

...

You have that backwards.  "Snuck" is the original form closer to O.E. (snikan) that, like in German, there is a vowel change rather like stink, stank, stunk; but became "regularized" like "leak, leaked" by 19th-century prescriptivist grammarians for no other reason than Southerners tend to use the old style, and British English had already morphed beyond the English speaked in the New World at least a century before.

{“Sneaked” is the standard past tense and past participle form of “sneak.” }

false.  Both are accepted.  It's not like "bring,brang, brung" in a now-rare alternative to "bring, brought, brought" where there is a Germanic vowel change, and a more sensible one, actually,  but not the standard one, "sneaked" is only the proper form if the target is to abolish all such vowel changes like "sing, sang, sung" into "sing, singed, singed."

I can't believe that somebody wants to turn a regular verb in an irregular verb. Regular verbs are easy to learn and remember. Irregular verbs are the opposite. Why complicate life ourselves?

Would you like to have different conjugations for each person like in French or Spanish? I bet you wouldn't!

English                             Spanish                                 French
I walk                               Yo camino                             Je marche
You walk                           Tu caminas                           Tu marches
He/She/It walks                 El/Ella camina                       Il/Elle marche
We walk                            Nosotros caminamos              Nous marchons
You walk                           Vosotros camináis                  Vous marchez
They walk                         Ellos caminan                         Ils marchent

Why complicate things for free???

Kiss,

Gacela.

All Americans should also have regular American names, too.

The 'irregular' verb is part of this thing called culture which is supposed to be messy and even archaic for every new generation to make even messier.

I'll jump into the fray-
I use "snuck". I've always used "snuck". Originally from Michigan, where I used "snuck" and moved to Florida (everyone used snuck) then to Texas and now Georgia (and still, no one makes fun of snuck- though they do look at any one using "sneaked" as funny. And I'll tell you, it isn't the age thing. But that's what I grew up with- back in the 70s. "Sneaked" sounds pretentious to my humble ear.

How about "knelt" and "kneeled"?

~Tom

I think if an American author is consistent, and does not bump up against some publishing house editing standard on the matter, there is not a problem. If you're going to use "leapt" and "slept" then you should use "knelt."   Okay, how many Yankees really think "lighted" is better than "lit"? The old-style Germanic is always a single, sharp syllable, and the alternative is a slippery one and half.

It's not harsh, it is just the way the word sounds to non-american English speaking ear.

'Snuck?' It's in there with the likes of; hound dawg, afeared, cuss, high-falutin, mom, gal, nohow, holler, yeehaw etc. etc.

If I wanted my character to come across as articulate and intelligent, they'd see you sneak or would report that you sneaked.

If I want my character to appear less educated or less articulate (or a US hillbilly/Trailer-trash/redneck), you would have snuck. 

I might sneak out of here, and you might have snuck away; no matter because I'm not challenging its validity as a word, merely noting that to many, it sounds dumb. It signals dumb; telegraphs dumbness.

Germanic versus Latinate equivalents in English is an interesting subject. Classic English novelists like Austen and Dickens have their brutish, dangerous and unintelligent antagonist characters using the Germanic variants and the heroic, intelligent and lovable protagonists, employing the Latinate alternatives. The effect on the reader is largely subliminal, but powerful all the same.

And, ahem...  Germanic is NOT always a single, sharp syllable, and the alternative is a slippery one and half.

Germanic - abandon - Latinate - desert
Germanic - allegiance -  Latinate - loyalty
Germanic - anger - Latinate - rage
Germanic - beforehand - Latinate - prior
Germanic - choose - Latinate - opt
Germanic - freezing - Latinate - frigid
Germanic - deadly - Latinate - fatal
Germanic - lifetime - Latinate - age
Germanic - banquet -Latinate - dine
Germanic - happiness - Latinate - joy
Germanic - harbour - Latinate - port
Germanic - island - Latinate - isle
Germanic - warranted - Latinate - just
Germanic - outlandish - Latinate - strange

Source = http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/4/389.abstract
English has two main sources for words: German and Latin. Distinct from each other, they have polarized our language into high diction and low (‘diglossia’). Latinate words denote the intellectual world; Germanic words, the physical. Latinate words are indicators of status and education. Austen painted and delineated her characters by giving their speeches different densities of Latinate words. Higher densities of Latinate words sometimes indicate intelligence and moral seriousness, at other times, they expose a character's formality or hypocrisy. Lower densities indicate lesser intelligence or, in the case of sailors, humble birth. The characters whose densities are very close to the narrator are Austen's four great heroines, Elinor Dashwood, Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse, and Anne Elliot.