CULTURE WATCH : How Troublesome Verbs ‘Snuck’ Up

Is it dived or dove ? Sneaked or snuck? Lighted or lit?

Blame it on Old English. Eight or so centuries ago, English had two kinds of verbs: strong and weak. The strong verbs changed vowels in the past tense. Thus ride became rode, go/went, grow/grew, etc.

Weak verbs, now called “regular” verbs, simply added ed to form the past tense. Thus live became lived, marry/married and die/died.

Fortunately, the trend has been toward the regularization of irregular verbs. As the third edition of the American Heritage Dictionary helpfully points out, the past tense of help used to be healp, while the past tense of step was stop.

Unfortunately, this modernization has not extended to all the irregular verbs. Consider such troublesome verbs as burst/burst (not bursted ) ; creep/crept (not creeped); lend/lent (not lended); lie/lay (not lied or laid ); sting/stung (not stang ).

For those perplexed over dived or dove, lighted or lit, shined or shone, sprang or sprung, good news: Both forms are acceptable.

But controversy still rages over sneak. While the American Heritage Dictionary acknowledges that the Southern regionalism snuck has sneaked into the language, 67% of its usage panel still favor sneaked. With an Arkansan in the White House, however, snuck may have to sneak no more.