Past Tense of Sneak

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is J.B. I’m calling from Cedar Hill, Texas.

Hi, J.B.

Hi, J.B. How are you doing?

All right, all right. How are you doing?

Okay, welcome to the program.

What’s on your mind, J.B.?

You know, I don’t speak the Queen’s English, but there are certain words that kind of irk my ear or hurt my ear.

And the word is snuck.

I hear it on TV, mainly from sports announcers because I listen to a lot of sports stations.

If you use the word long enough, does it become okay?

Because I know the word is not a proper word, but I hear it so often, so I’m thinking maybe it’s okay to use it now.

So you’re talking about the past tense of sneak.

What is the past tense of sneak?

Right.

Right.

That is correct.

You asked a couple of good questions.

Let me start by saying that you’re talking about standard English.

Is it sneak or snuck?

And you’re right. The standard past tense of sneak is sneaked.

And what’s going on here is that there are a couple of different kinds of verbs in English.

There are regular verbs, which are also known as weak verbs.

And they’re called weak verbs because they need that ED tacked onto them to make them past tense.

Okay.

You know, like talk and talked.

Yeah.

That’s a weak verb.

Okay. And then there are also irregular verbs.

And we also call those strong verbs.

Because they undergo their own internal change.

They can do it on their own without having the help of the ED.

For example, the word speak.

The past tense of speak, JB, is?

Spoke.

Right.

The past tense there is spoke.

And so, as you say, so far in standard English, sneak is a weak verb.

So it needs that little help of the ED there to make it a past tense.

That’s standard English.

That’s the rule.

But here’s the deal about sneak is that sneak has been a weak verb, but it’s secretly been buffing up.

I don’t know if it’s been working out with a personal trainer or if it’s taking steroids or what.

But more and more, we hear people saying snuck.

It’s changing internally.

And you’ve raised a great question about when does it reach critical mass?

When are enough people using snuck that snuck sneaks up on us and ends up in the language.

And, Grant, you’re a dictionary editor, and so you’re the guy who makes those kinds of decisions, right?

For a dictionary, yes, for an individual dictionary, not for the language as a whole.

That’s kind of up to the speakers of the language.

There’s another thing at play here with snuck, which is a lot of people don’t actually like the sounds in the word.

And it’s not so much that they think it’s ungrammatical.

They just don’t like the sn- and the kuh.

They don’t like that.

You feel like you need a Kleenex or something.

So there’s a second thing that I think that deserves mentioning.

Snuck has been around long enough since the 1800s that it is, in some circles, not even remarked upon when it’s spoken.

People use it and they don’t even realize that it’s a nonstandard choice.

And so we are well on the way to have snuck be a permanent part of the lexicon.

Oh, boy.

You said it.

Yeah.

Because I just opened the floodgates with many other words.

Well, SNUC is in every dictionary that I’ve checked.

It’s so common that every dictionary feels obligated to include it.

Now, they often remark that it’s nonstandard or it’s informal, but it is in there.

Once the dictionary editors have noticed something, then you can be pretty sure that it’s going to stick around for a while.

Thank you, guys.

Hey, well, it’s been good talking with you.

Thank you.

Okay, bye-bye.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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