Driving back from the airport this weekend after our vacation, I put on an audio CD for the kids, one of the Horrid Henry stories. In part of the story, he was said to have “sneaked” into a room. Sneaked? Surely he “snuck” into the room, I thought. But then I lost confidence. Have I been saying “snuck” all these years by mistake?
To reassure myself, I quickly tried to think of other irregular verbs ending in -eak where I would do this. I couldn’t think of any. Instead, I thought of examples where I don’t do this. For example, I wouldn’t say:
- cruck rather than creaked
- fruck rather than freaked
- wruck rather than wreaked
So how on earth did I come to believe that it was snuck rather than sneaked? AskOxford told me that I wasn’t alone and that it was an American form that has grown popular. Common Errors In English agreed but warned I’d be safer sticking with “sneaked.”
Random House’s The Mavens’ Word Of The Day left me most reassured about snuck. It wrote comprehensively about how usage had changed, how it is indeed unusual as a -eak verb to have a -uck form and why no one should feel “snuck” is non-standard for American English
Interestedly, Francesca Simon — who writes the Horrid Henry books — is an American who grew up in California (like me) who lives in the UK (like me). So why didn’t she use “snuck” rather than “sneaked?” No idea, but since her British books use British spellings, I’m guessing “sneaked” won out over here.
While discovering why I use “snuck,” I also learned it was both a past tense and past participle for sneak. And what was the difference between “past tense” and “past participle” again?
Yeah, here I am an English major asking about this. Cut me some slack. English majors don’t take lessons in grammar. You know how we relearn grammatical forms we’ve long forgotten since elementary school? We study a foreign language! That’s why I have on my shelf my trusty copy of English Grammar For Students Of German.
Rather than reach for that, however, I first did a little web searching. A lot of what I found explained how a past participle was formed but not what it was in terms of when you use it.
In other words, plenty of pages told me that a past participle is usually a verb with -ed added as a suffix, except for irregular verbs. Great, but what’s the difference between that and the past tense in terms of usage, not in terms of how you make the verb form?
OK, this page had a good definition of past tense: an action that was both started and finished in the past. The verb form to show this usually ends in -ed, so:
- The race ended.
- The car stalled.
What about the past participle? That same page indirectly explains this is a verb form usually ending in -ed and with a helper or auxiliary verb that is used to represent the various perfect tenses, such as:
- Present Perfect Tense: An action that happened in the past at an indefinite time or began in the past and continues into the present.
- The race has ended.
- Past Perfect Tense: An action that happened in the past before another past action.
- The race had ended, and the awards were given out.
- Future Perfect Tense: An action in the future that will happen before another future action.
- The race will have ended before the awards will be given out.
So to bring it back to sneak, if you consider it to be a regular verb, you use -ed as the suffix for the past tense and the -ed suffix with a helper verb to make the past participle form used for the perfect tenses. Examples show it better:
- He sneaked into the room. (past tense)
- He has sneaked into the room. (present perfect tense)
- He had sneaked into the room, and then he was caught. (past perfect tense)
- He will have sneaked into the room, before stealing the money. (present perfect tense)
If you are like me and prefer to treat sneaked as a irregular verb, then forget that -ed suffix and use snuck:
- He snuck into the room. (past tense)
- He has snuck into the room. (present perfect tense)
- He had snuck into the room, and then he was caught. (past perfect tense)
- He will have snuck into the room, before stealing the money. (present perfect tense)
Isn’t grammar fun? No doubt, if I’ve got it wrong, folks will leave comments below.
Postscript: From below, a video of Conan O’Brien smacking Jennifer Garner down as she tries to correct him from saying snuck:
Postscript 2: Grammar Girl has a video up (sorry, it doesn’t allow embedding) that says it’s sneaked over snuck, if you want to be proper.
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An afterthought.
Just for fun, why can one hang a picture? The picture was hung. He hung the picture.
The man was hanged, not hung.
Mahalo
whew! thanks dan. i was worried for a second there about my beloved snuck.
EVrybody knows SNUK is not a word
Dear Dan,
Ain’t actually used to be a word that was in the dictionary back in the early 1700′s. It was the contraction for ‘am not’. However, people started using it incorrectly saying he ain’t, she ain’t, we ain’t, and the older generations kept telling the younger people that what they were saying was wrong until eventually using the word at all (even correcty) became a ‘mistake’.
This was fun! Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, my instincts tell me to say “snuck.” But then I was writing, and my computer said, “You’re so wrong, dude.” So I turned to the internet.
I have a great many grammar and spelling pet peeves. The one that tops my list is breathe/breath (and associated examples, like bathe/bath etc.). I go into a rage. I’ve seen this error in published works, and it drives me up the wall. However, I studied linguistics, and I know that despite the fits of fury I have every time I see this mistake, language is going to change. Someone is probably having fits of fury concerning the amount of commas I pepper my sentences with – and the fact that I just ended that clause with a preposition. (I split infinitives, too! That’s a stupid rule, anyway; it was meant for Latin, not English!)
Does this mean that we shouldn’t correct errors when we see them? Of course not! But it also means that if the majority makes a decision to adopt a new usage, there is little we can do about it, no matter how many red pens we have. That’s how language WORKS. If “the majority” decided to get rid of the final ‘e’ that indicated a voiced interdental fricative – well, frankly, we’d have problems, like distinguishing clothes from cloths, and I might have a heart attack. But the language would hardly implode.
In conclusion: I’m sticking with snuck. Just like my mum, who grew up in the same area as I did and speaks largely the same way I do, insists on saying “warsh” instead of “wash,” despite the number of times I snicker at her. If I ever publish something, I promise I’ll consider “sneaked” instead – I’ll also watch my split infinitives and prepositions. But in casual language? Sorry, dudes. Tough luck.
I liked this but one thing you got wrong is calling “will have sneaked” or “will have + any past participle” as PRESENT perfect. That is FUTURE perfect. Present perfect is “have/has run” or whatever.
To Gregory:
You’re right about the ‘fish’ thing. And to the one who breaks rules: I think ‘snuck’ is right rather than ‘sneaked’. And right English grammar should be kept as for the rules ( I think) but mostly I really want to stick with the ‘snuck’ word.
well, i snuck into this conversation, which has carried on quite some time, only to say to trish, how about dumbing *up* the language for the purposes of communication? some concepts are better communicated with creative improper use of the language (thus the beauty of the OED, showing definition by usage over time!)
sometimes the poetry of the wrong is the only proper tool for the inenarrable
best of luck in the future perfect tense to all of you sneaking irregular verbs into the pantheon!
Paul,
Ain’t gonna happen babe.
xxxooo
I am from Northern California, born and reared there. I live in Utah now and have a pet peeve–people using the word “snuck” as the past tense of sneak. This includes my family and friends. The word “snuck” makes me cringe every time I hear it and it has been years. I will never get used to it. I looked it up once and learned that “sneaked” is a more formal use. Another pet peeve of mine is the faulty use of the words “me” and “I”. In your article above you refer to Francesca Simone…who grew up in California (like me ) and who lives in the UK (like me)….In both cases it should be “I”. Thinking it out: “like I do” or “like I did”. Thanks for letting me vent.
Bless you, Betty and Trish! Thank goodness for the puritans among us, eh? The “I” and “me” variations drive me up the wall, too – no one seems to teach subjective/objective cases anymore – or at least (more typically, perhaps) students aren’t listening. It infuriates me that so many defend this dumbing down of the language as “natural evolution” or some such doofus excuse, when the only thing natural about it is deliberate ignorance. In some cases, ignorance is inevitable, but it’s never defensible. In too many, it’s simply the result of laziness. In our lemming-like march to the drum of PC and “anything’s OK”, we’re sacrificing far more than our basic rights, eh? To keep adjectives on point – the loss of ability to render nuanced expression as the result of diminishment of language is criminal, not natural – uhhhh – yeah, I know….
Most of what I’ve read indicates that “snuck” is one of those words that has become acceptable over the years, through excessive usage. Whenever I read that, I’m happy that I use the “original” form of the word ~ I’m a purist about grammar (a grammar “snob,” I suppose), and feel that grammar isn’t negotiable.
It doesn’t make sense to me to just let common usage dictate what is “acceptable.” If that becomes the criterion for acceptability, then all the people (and the number is ridiculously high) who ask, “Where is the restroom at?” are “correct!” I say, “No way!” Majority rule does NOT necessarily make something right!
Amen, Donna. Majority rule becomes the case of the blind leading the halt. Moreover, “common” is just that.
Actually, majority rule is exactly what makes things right in language. But if you disagree, please shift back to speaking middle English or perhaps German
Modern English is a far different language that has evolved, over time. No one sat down and decided how it should evolve. Nor does someone do it today. We have language rules, yes. But those rules get broken, and when they continue to be broken enough, the rules change.
Excellent insight Danny! Ye hit the wooden peg on the olde head. What’s even more interesting than the evolution of language…is how resistant humans are to change and how resistant we can be to “breaking a rule”. As a recovering grammar policeman I’ve learned the hard way that bound-up thinking goes further than just writing. I’m not advocating gibberish (which has been written by some celebrated authors, though no one would dare admit it). But innovation in all things follows a string of broken rules.
Sheesh. I feel like I am in a Ray Bradbury novel. Why can we not just burn the grammar books since we have decided that they are obsolete–we follow public grammar usage not a stupid book (note sarcasm). While we are at it, let us burn the rest of them (fiction, nonfiction, etc.)
“We don’t need no education…teacher, leave them kids alone.”
I feel that, with language, like any other form of art, one should know the rules and choose which ones to break and when. I’m glad I know proper US English grammar, but I will not likely ever use such phrases as, “with whom are you going to the movies?” I’d say, “who are you going to the movies with?”
Feel free to speak perfectly proper English in your daily lives. Most of the rest of us will find you pretentious. But you’ll have the last laugh, knowing that you are right and the rest of us are fools.
I’m with you, Trish … and, Marcello, I get your point about not going overboard ~ But, lately I’ve been thought of as pretentious, just for expressing my dislike for the “at” at the end of a sentence (and, no, I would never call people out; I do mention it to my kids, though).
The latest phenomenon of “majority rule” gone amuk (in the U.S.), in my opinion, began “on the street,” and has now made its way to television ~ being uttered regularly even by journalists, who I would think would resist it — and that is the almost-total abandonment of the word ‘are’ in a certain sense ~ Every day, I hear people in all walks of life say, “There’s a lot of problems with the school system,” and “There’s blankets in the storeroom.” Wow. What’s the opposite of ‘pretentious?’ ~ In this case, I think it’s ‘Lazy.’
Another one that bothers me is the misuse of your and you’re. I’m definitely not perfect in my verbal grammar but somewhat better in what I write, usually. A preposition at the end of a sentence, the misuse of “I” and “me”, “snuck” instead of “sneaked”, the use of “myself” instead of “me”, etc., all serve to make me wonder what our language will degenerate into in 30 years. I still can’t get used to “ain’t” being in the dictionary. By the way, spell check on my computer indicates snuck is not a proper word. I personally don’t believe majority rule is a good thing in grammar any more than in government. I say, “Rule of law in both!”.
Majority rule is what has always driven the evolution of language. However, in the examples mentioned, I don’t believe those sentences were uttered by people who knew the difference and chose to break the rules. That’s just ignorance.
I’m not worried though. As long as there are people like us who do know the rules and talk about it, write about it, keep the conversation going, I have no fear that intelligent conversation will continue–much of which will be in the form of proper English.
SNUCK was not even in the dictionary when I was in College in the 60′s. SNEAKED is the proper usage if you don’t want to appear slightly red-neck. Another word that is being taken over by misuse is SCARED used in place of AFRAID. eg. I was SCARED to go, instead of, I was AFRAID to go ( because something scared me ).
I’m ascared of scared taking over from afraid
Ascared? That’s “skeered”, son.
We are certainly separating the traditionalists from the ‘who cares?’, are we not? KUDOs – great discussion.
I hate ‘snuk’. It’s almost as bad as ‘irregardless’.
It’s all part of the dumbing-down of America.
Irregardless, it is sticking around… could not resist–teehee.
First, I don’t think anyone is arguing on behalf of the word “snuk.” It’s spelled “snuck.” Ha.
And Trish, don’t add fuel to the pile. It’s already inflammable. Or is that flammable? One of them has to be correct, right? You couldn’t possibly have two versions of the same word meaning the same thing. That would be…anarchy!
Another pet peeve, “infer” when one means “imply.” Ugh.
“And Trish, don’t add fuel to the pile.”
Marcello, we’re already knee-deep in a conversation about viable word choices, are we really going to add mixed-metaphors into this too?
And on that note (could those fragments of conjoined-punctuation be considered a “note” or am I just using a colloquial phrase out-of-context?), are emoticons viable forms of communication? They’re certainly a severe bastardization of written language, yet they just as certainly serve a useful function. Is “emoticon” a word? What makes “snuck” more or less of a word?
Back to grammar, what about starting a sentence with a conjunction? Or inserting a question mark amidst a parenthetical clause? Or the use of sentence fragments involving implied subjects for ease-of-continuity? Frankly, I would consider the “sneaked”/”snuck” debate to be just as fruitless (though just as important, as the debate itself has much merit) as a discussion on proper grammar. I certainly wouldn’t consider an alternative mode of speech to be “dumbing down” language.
P.S. Marcello, I do actually agree with your sentiment. I’m just playing with syntax and being a jerk. For clarity: I am still in favor of “snuck.”
I was shewn this by the Google and lol’d heartily at the pearl clutching. Chill people. Or would that be calmeth yourselves? IDK, god get over it. Snuck is here. Deal with it or go get another language that never changes. Oh wait.
Edly, I suppose one could be knee-deep in a flaming pile onto which something inflammatory is poured. And you bring up so many great conundrums (or is that conundri?). Language can be so much fun.
I’ll reiterate my earlier statement, the purpose of language is to communicate effectively. Knowing your audience should be taken into consideration when formulating your speech. Modern technology has coerced us into breaking all sorts of rules.
And, no, it was I who was being…wait…it was me who was being…I was the one being a jerk. Ha!
I HATE texting because it take’s too long to punctuate, and I just can’t abide by that. I don’t mind acronyms and abbreviations, even things like “2nite,” etc. (though things like signs stating “open all nite” still bug me). But improper punctuation often forces a reader to re-read and sometimes interpret.
carlmarl, I love that you used the word “shewn.” Awesome. And “pearl clutching” is such a great metaphor. I’m going to have to remember to use that one! And, I think that would be “calmeth thyselves.” I could be wrong though.
Not to pick on you, but you provided an example of why punctuation is so important. You wrote “chill people” and I first thought you were referring us as a laid-back group. But then I realized that (I think) you meant “chill, people,” meaning you were suggesting that we calm down.
I love this thread!
I realize I’m joining this conversation a bit late, but I’d like to correct one thing that I’ve seen a lot of people write here. Grammar is NOT constantly changing. In fact, grammar and punctuation rules have changed remarkably slowly over time. Word meaning and spelling change much more rapidly. Grammar rules? Not so much.
True. Grammar *rules* haven’t kept up with actual usage. For the most part, I’m glad. But, I’d say that the majority of communication (verbal and written) routinely break many of those rules: beginning a sentence with “and,” “but,” or “or,” for instance.
;^)
One should know the rules (of anything) before breaking them.
Exactly! Once you know the rules, they’re a lot of fun to break. This is especially true if you’re breaking them in a manner which creates a minor bit of ambiguity. That subtle confusion is the essence of an entire style of humor. I would posit that good writing follows the rules very well; great writing breaks them to pieces. After all, the rules became rules to serve a point. It only stands to reason that you can create an equally viable point by NOT following those rules. Now, this isn’t meant to say that rules should be haphazardly disregarded… and I’m certainly not suggesting that we install linguistic anarchy. That would actually work against the point. In that case, language wouldn’t function at all. Rather, I view rule breaking in subtle, clever, and intentional ways as a means of furthering the capabilities of the language.
I also love this thread. Without discussions like this the whole idea I just outlined wouldn’t even be possible. Well, it would. But it would be a seriously inside joke to one guy who thought he’d invented the best pun of all time. (Puns, by the way, are awesome. They’re the most selfish jokes possible. No one likes them except the person who made them. And he always thinks they’re HILARIOUS.)
Anyway, the main reason that grammar doesn’t change very much over time is because it’s the foundation of the language. It’s a lot easier to redecorate the walls and buy new furniture than it is to build a new house. The words and spelling are the walls and furniture. Sometimes, the junk people put in their house is pretty tacky and gross. But sometimes, a new idea can be extremely elegant and classy.
Okay, carlmarl ~ Your recent post has now set me off on another tangent: Shouldn’t “pearl clutching” be “pearl-clutching?” My frequent use of hyphens is probably the most old-fashioned (‘See?) of my writing habits. I realize that hyphens were used generously years ago, and that they are practically non-existent (a.k.a. “nonexistent”) today, but I LOVE hyphens! My eyes always go right to the spot where (I think) a hyphen should be!
Many words don’t make sense to me, when they’re not hyphenated. If you refer to “an old fashioned style,” I immediately want to add a hyphen; otherwise, it the style is old AND it is fashioned. I often see “Honey Baked Ham” or Apricot Basted Chicken,” and the absence of hyphens makes me crazy. To me, it’s as blatant an error as your “Chill people,” carlmarl! Unfortunately, I can’t chill on the hyphen issue, any more than I can on the “snuck” issue.
I can’t believe I didn’t catch my superfluous “it” after the word “otherwise!” Since this is a tough crowd, I want to point out my mistake, before someone else gives me grief about it …
Marcello, there is still no reason to start a sentence with “and”, “but” or “or”. I always use “however”, instead of “but” to start a sentence and I’ve yet to find the occasion where “and” or “or” can’t be used as part of the previous sentence, instead of starting a new sentence. By the way, in your note above, “The majority of communication routinely ‘breaks’, not ‘break’ many of those rules”.
I feel the same way about hyphens. I often think I’m the only person left to obsessively use them when appropriate. But (yes, I plan to continue using “but” as often as “however” to begin sentences when it enhances the flow), I usually understand what people are trying to convey. There are times, however, that I have to reread an improperly hyphenated sentence to determine what the author actually meant.
Mark, I obviously disagree with you over the use of conjunctions to begin a sentence. And, isn’t “however” a conjunction? I’d actually like to know what the rule is there and why that’s an exception. Maybe I’ll do some research on that.
As for my use of “break” instead of “breaks,” I don’t have a copy editor, and it’s hard to proof one’s own work. It was a typo. Thank you for pointing it out though. Modifying the adjective that (which?) precedes the last word often causes trouble.
I agree that this thread is both fun and informative. I also want to state that, though I plan to continue to use “snuck,” I have my own pet peeves. I may even point errors out to others. I just don’t tend to think that the sky is falling and that human communication will devolve to the point of grunting and scratching.
I urge people to watch the movie Idiocracy, nonetheless.
Do you think that the past tense of swing is swung may have influenced our belief that the past tense of sneak is snuck? That just popped into my head as I used swung in a message.
Or is it swang? Swinged? Swingen?
;^)p
Or Swim, swam (swum?) Good point. As for which grammatical errors bother me, I guess the higher the source, the more I expect perfection. Ex President Bush’s errors really annoyed me. Here was a guy who liked to “shoot from the hip”, but clearly shouldn’t have tried. Dan Quayle should have known how to spell potato.
I work in a film processing lab and people who work there misspell develop (they add an “e”). That annoys me. Newspaper headlines should be correct. What about signs and menus, where somebody spent a lot of money having them printed, but didn’t check spelling?
If all these examples don’t make you cringe, how about this? There was a giant billboard on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles, which stated something like, “We need to unify to stop frivilous lawsuit”. It was funded by a group of attorneys.
I always use hyphens when I write poetry, and now it is starting to appear in my prose. I think I picked this up from reading Emily D’s poetry.
I also use “and” to occasionally begin a sentence, usually short ones where a point needs to be made. For some reason, it seems to be more effective if the sentence is a short one that follows several compound or complex sentences. And this is all I have to say.
xxxooo
‘Just had a thought I couldn’t resist sharing: To me, saying “snuck” is as laughable as saying something like “Her singing career puck [aka ‘peaked’) in the 1980s.” How about, “The water luck all over the floor.”
Donna Lee, thank you for the first belly laugh I’ve had in following this. I nearly fruck out while reading your remarks. Let us not ignore the lowly buck hazelnut and buck whale, nor the hardy sailor with his tuck deck. You go, girl!
Hahaha! I am definitely going to start saying that people’s careers have puck. That is hilarious.
So, noticing that this debate is certainly not going away any time soon, I’ve started to wonder some things about it. Out of curiosity, how old are each of you (roughly)? I’m starting to wonder what the links are between people on each side of the debate. If I could harbor a guess, I’d presume that younger people are more likely to say “snuck” than older people. We’ve discussed geography a bit but I’m curious as to how sharply the lines are drawn regarding age.
I’m fairly young, so I’m about to lose any credibility for my comments, and I like “snuck.” I’m in my mid-twenties.
I’m 45 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. I use “snuck.”
I’m 67, was born and reared in West Virginia, and am a Consulting Engineer. I despise ignorant degradation of the language. For anyone steeped in the classics and professionally adept at communication, defense of “snuck” and its ilk fall into the same baseless category as defense of childish crayon scribbles as serious or knowledgeable art.
Such “change” is not growth, but a sign of the language slowly shrinking into a mass of signs and grunts, a method which apparently worked well for cave dwellers, but didn’t contribute a thing to creation of the computer you’re using or of the great literature languishing on shelves everywhere.
It’s not a matter of opinion or “it’s my right” (sigh) preference. One is either educated or not. The “dumbing-down” of language is in inverse proportion to the depth of a population’s understanding of words, etymology, classical base languages, literature, and nuance in communication. Our education system and the commitment and education of parents have failed, with diminishing ability to communicate a portion of the result.
In English, we “own” upwards of 750,000 words, a cornucopia capable of informing the most delicate nuance. Of that, most adults know fewer than 20,000 while the grunters seem to perceive even that paltry portion as being far too many. After all, it’s supposed to be easy, eh?
Just as skilled tradesmen require apprenticeship to learn a craft, so does our entire population deserve apprenticeship in the art of communication and verbal expression, in the course of which one is forbidden journeyman status until one has achieved considerable skill. Unfortunately, laziness and disinterest have created in the U.S. an atmosphere entirely too tolerant of Eloi who claim right without merit.
We individually have the right to choose ignorance, but it’s self-defeating to defend ignorance as knowledge, is it not? Let us hope that our physicians don’t decide that “Grunt” is an adequate basis in language for discussion and treatment of our physical ills.
And thus has puck my bilious intolerance.
I’m 33.5 and “snuck” abhors me. I can’t stand it!
Perhaps evolution of language is at risk for a bad turn when it is changing in step with, as a result of, other degredations. If culture is swinging upward, language shifts might be fine.
….and I know better than to open a sentence with a conjunction, but the irresistible “And….” form provides effective, albeit slangy, conversational emphasis; so I does it wit’ no ‘pology offered.
I’m 63, was born in California, raised mostly in New York, and have lived on three continents since being married. (I’m now back in California.) I’m a self-confessed “grammar snob,” and, like PJohn, see “snuck” as a childish, made-up form of the word.
My biggest influence was my mother, who was brought up in a “proper” family, and loved English. I also credit the then-wonderful New York education I received. And the significance of my international living experiences is that I always have in my mind the plight of the expat or immigrant, who is learning the language of his host country. How can others learn the language properly, if the “natives” don’t speak it correctly?
Every time I hear someone ask, “Where is the restroom at?” or say “lasheer” instead of “last year,” I think of people who are trying to learn our language mostly by watching television (where these, and other similar “wrongs” can be heard). I learned, living overseas, to speak slowly and distinctly, and it makes me feel good to be told by people from other countries that they appreciate the way I speak, because it is not rushed and garbled. It’s like anything else — When we try to do something well, we love being complimented on it.
I definitely think that those of us who are “older” revere the English we learned, whereas some younger people are more willing to adopt newer “adaptations.” We had wonderful role models; I have always thought of William F. Buckley as the ultimate model English-speaker. (I wasn’t crazy about his politics until his more moderate later years, but I was transfixed by the way he spoke with such precision!)
Realizing that I sound like a real stick-in-the-mud, I feel compelled to add that I’m fun-loving, am told that I am “young” for my age, and love creative projects (writing poetry and making greeting cards). I love and keep up with popular music. When my own kids were into the music of “my” generation (Beatles, Bob Marley, etc.), I was speaking excitedly about the “current” music with their friends.
An amusing anecdote combining English grammar and popular music: I hated Bryan Adams’ song (of the ’90s), “Everything I Do, I Do it for You,”
because I felt (and still do) that the title should have been the grammatically-correct “Everything I Do I Do for You.” (Am I right about that? I hope so — I would hate to have to tell my kids that my protests were misguided!)
I’m a snucker, raised in California, though lived 97-08 in England. Back in CA now.
Danny, with all due respect, I cannot help but snicker at snucker.
Danny, I love your “identity” as a “snucker!” I guess you “took our place” in England — We lived in London from ’94 to ’97. That was another, later influence in my love affair with English. Most Brits speak more deliberately, and I really like that.
PJohn, while in England, I snickered at snooker.
Donna Lee, I’m a bit perplexed over snickering at snooker, which has long possessed numerous meanings on both sides of the pond.
I admit that I’ve played snooker, been well-snookered (var; “snockered”), and snookered more than one greenhorn (in jest.)
Did you discover yet another variant among meanings for this delightfully colorful and nonsensical term?
Oh, good grief. A little searching has revealed at least six U.K. variations in the meaning of “snooks” (not of “snookered”)- no wonder you were amused.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=snooks
This is a fun set of comments. To Marcello, thanks for the correct use of y’all. It is plural and one would never say “Y’all comeback now.” as one person was leaving your house. To Trish-I was able to read your “…learned us sumpin” with no problems. I’ve always had a good ear for dialect and usually can read it with few problems, ” ‘specially when it’s from down home”. When I moved to Cleveland I was asked what part of the South I came from. My reply was from Ohio. But yes, southern Ohio. We say sack instead of bag, and baked goods instead of bakery. You buy baked goods at a bakery and take them home in a sack, not you picked up bakery and take it in a bag. Both are colloquial English, and both make sense to me. I watched an old tv show that called a tow truck a wrecker. It had been years since I’d heard that, yet I knew at once what was meant.When I was a kid I played in a “crick” though it was spelled “creek”. “Wash” was pronounced “warsh” Do you know what a tree lawn is? Many folks in my home town don’t, yet most everyone in Cleavland certainly would. How about a devil strip? They mean the same thing, but the second is common in Akron, just 30 miles away( 48 km). The word “goodbye” was considered very wrong when it began to be substituted for “God be with you.”
English grows and changes. I love the fact that I can go back and find a nearly obsolete word and use it for emphasis or just for fun. I love many new words, and most new usages of old words. When I was born the word “satellite” meant the Moon, and bodies like it. Seven years later that changed with a little thing called Sputnik, which then changed a “beat” poet into “beatnik”. Words like “buckaroo” snuck in from Spanish, “vaquero”, and was transformed. Gay has changed a lot in just my lifetime. And we have cobwebs but cobs are found in corn, um… maize to those in the UK.
Sometimes “That just ain’t right” is the best way to convey what you need to say and how you want to say it. Jefferson lived in Monticello, pronounced “Montichello”. The street that crosses mine is Monticello, pronounced “Montisello” and everyone would know you were from out of town if you pronounced the “ch”.
You Brits tacked an “e” on to a very impolite, though perfectly good Anglo-Saxon word and my wife had to have it translated when watching a film from the UK. I say “zee”, you say “zed”. Grey or gray? Kerb or curb? Jail or gaol?
Trish – your complaint is that we get lazy and words get said incorrectly. Yes! That’s how we got bedlam, tawdry, and maudlin.
I guess my point is that English is a living, growing language.
Try to use formal or standard English if you must or if it makes you feel better but be open to the fact that someday what is standard may change.
Meanwhile have fun with English; it is such a funny, fun, vibrant language.
‘Bye now. Nice talkin’ with y’all.
D’oh! I remember when “Ms.” was introduced into the lexicon. Actually, it was introduced before I was born but picked up speed when I was about five. By the time I was ten, there was a raging debate about it. So many traditionalists abhorred it. By the time I turned 15, it was commonplace. And why not? How confusing it was if one didn’t know whether a woman was married or not. Calling a “ma’am” “miss” got me into trouble once. Stupid!
Is there resistance to “y’all” being used regularly because the possessive would be “y’all’s” and two apostrophes in one sentence would make some people’s heads explode?
BTW, here’s a joke I came up with:
Q: What did the exclamation point say to the apostrophe?
A: Stop being so possessive!!!
And, is it okay to use “ASAP” but not “BTW”? What a Snafu that would be! “Snafu” used to be “SNAFU” (Situation Normal All F’d Up). OMG!
I love learning new colloquialisms! Lorry, boot, lift, braces–all British English. Sorry, but there is a difference between British, Australian, Canadian, etc. English, just as there is a difference between Peruvian, Spanish, Venezuelan, Mexican, etc. Spanish.
Is it a “puma,” “mountain lion,” “cougar,” “panther,” “catamount,” other? In California, they’re “mountain lions.” I think “cougar” is sexier.
I like using quotes (AKA quotation marks).
“We had a couple of beers.” Used to drive me crazy. Beer is both singular and plural. “We had a couple of *cans* (or *bottles*) of beer. But I finally got over that.
I’ll never accept “the proof is in the pudding” though. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” I’m fighting a losing battle, I know. People just accept that there’s an omniscient pudding somewhere.
“I only have eyes for you.” Does that mean that you have nothing but eyes to give someone? Does “I feel nauseous” mean that I feel like I’m nauseating others?
I remember when we started using “queer” as an all-inclusive form of “gay” (instead of “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning”). That drove Baby Boomers nertz. But Gen X (I prefer “Baby Busters”) and Millennials prefer the ease and inclusivity (not a word, I know). Nowadays (was that always a proper word?), Millennials tend to distinguish between “gay,” meaning mainstream homosexual, and “queer,” which means alternative or activist gender outlaws.
The mispronunciation of Monticello, for obvious reasons, has always bugged me (an improper use of bug, I believe). I can tell people (verbally) that my name is mar-chell-oh, and people will respond “good to meet you, mar-sell-oh.” For those planning to visit San Francisco, they’re “cable cars,” not “trolleys,” unless you’re riding Muni, in which case they’re “street cars.” And Ghirardelli has a hard “g” and a silent “r”.
I also prefer “grey.” Why don’t we ride “Grayhound” buses (aside from the fact that Greyhound Bus Line sucks)? Why doesn’t “buses” have two of the letter “s”? How does one write the plural of a letter, anyhow?
Oh, I could go on and on.
OK, I have a plural that is driving me mad. We have “two” “too” and “to” so the the English language has three “what” ? I can say the word but how do we write it and be inclusive? How about tooze? We have three tooze! Not like the sloth who has three toes.
I forgot to say I do like fruck instead of freaked, but one would have to really be careful.
Meanwhile, the lights winked out as he snuck off to bed.
Pity the poor ballerina owning more than one costume, thus having the care of two tutus, too, to manage.
One need not be excessively careful in using “fruck” – simple orneriness will suffice
I’d like to comment on your reference to “web” surfing. You would actually be Web surfing. The word should always be capitalized as a proper noun when referring to the World Wide Web. It’s rather like calling someone Tom rather than Thomas. Even though Tom is a shortened version of Thomas, you’d still capitalize it. Web is a shortened name for World Wide Web.
And why don’t we capitalize telephone or radio? They once were, but we got over it. The internet and the web are supposed to be considered proper nouns, but the overwhelming majority does not capitalize them. Why isn’t earth capitalized?
Who writes “web site” any more? It’s “website.” Using the proper noun logic, I suppose it should be “Web site.” “Email” used to be “e-mail.” I can’t remember if it was capitalized or not.
I do, however, take issue with “login” and “logon,” but I accept that forces greater than I have decided it is kosher to use.
For that matter, who decided that “can not” could become “cannot”? Who decided it was okay to further contract it to make it “can’t”? Why is “okay” spelled out when it began as an acronym (OK)?
It’s because we, as a people, collectively decided so and some authority at Merriam Webster or Oxford Dictionary decided not to fight it and made it official.
We could go on and on. Feel free to rage against the machine to the bitter end, but language will continue to evolve. I’m not too concerned that communication will degrade to grunts, but if that keeps you up at night, I can commiserate. I have trouble sleeping because of the state of our environment and an economy driven by continual warfare and cheap goods made by people living in slave-like conditions.
I don’t like “beers” either. It is a substance not a quantity. It is, “We had beer.” Like, “I ate cheese.”
In the current spirit of bouncing subject changes off the walls, I’ll offer an additional pet peeve as being that of elision of consonants, wherein, for example, “I take the fifth amendment” (a stupid construction) becomes “Uhtayduhfimemen” (indescribable.)
I frequently witness entire conversations of which I’m able to comprehend only an insignificant portion, which inevitably leads to fruckoutedness (properly elided, f’kowneh.) Thus do we witness the abomination of negative growth, eh?
The nearly exclusive sounding of vowels alone is – at most – evidence that one’s mouth is open; possibly to catch flies, but certainly not to communicate with anyone the content of whose vocabulary exceeds 50 words. Such series of indecipherable grunts are among the linguistic transgressions that impel me to so passionately defend accuracy in application and maintenance of language.
It’s healthy and necessary for a language to grow, even – or especially – in its content of charming colloquialisms, but a tocsin sounds as the fullness of its content becomes increasingly erose. Not only are structure and meaning afflicted, but, and more importantly, the understanding of millenia of recorded history and storytelling; without the words and the discipline, the stories and lessons become garbled and eventually lost (forgive us, Clio and Calliope, Erato and sweet Thalia; view us not too harshly Melpomene!)
Thus is “elision” transmuted to cancerous “erosion” in the butchery of linguistic richness – a process akin to that of being snookered with snuck.
PJohn, my only response to that is that there have always been people who have spoken that way, yet our language has continued to flourish. In fact, I’d argue that people are more literate today than at any time in human history.
Increasingly, the average person has more access to information than ever before, thanks to the web. Written communication has become far more commonplace today than it was in 1990, because of the use texts and email.
Granted, our use of words and phrases has become more stunted, LOL. I actually HATE the overuse of that acronym, BTW. But y’all know what I mean, right?
Of course, that all started with the advent of advertising in the 19th Century, and its explosion in the Post-WWII era.
Having said that, who else but intellectuals in the mostly empty halls of academia ever had discussions like we’re having here? Thank you, internet.
Oh, thank you, PJohn, for teaching me a new word: elision.
Thanks for your response, Marsello … yes, yes, I know…
LOL? You mean, uhhhh, “Little of Literacy?”
I am somewhat sypathetic with the practical value of some form of shorthand for texting (in which I participate with some reluctance, and with frequent serious lapses into full-sentence creations), but have little or no patience with such acronyms in civilized discourse.
Actually, discussions such as this took place regularly in our home, which was certainly far removed from the halls of academe. How, in fact, can one expect to further success in any venture – including that of living – if one considers one’s education to be complete upon graduation from one level of instruction or another? Curiosity and learning are the engines of societal success, whereas sloth and disinterest are assuredly harbingers of its decline.
I postulate – knowledgeably, as the result of monitoring both childrens’ and grandchildrens’ texts and rigor in schooling – that the level of literacy in our country is falling, not ascendant. More and more people are communicating, but fewer and fewer are making much more than noise. With more “communication” comes more gibberish.
As to elision: you’re welcome, but you’d surely at one time or another have discovered it for yourself in pursuit of a less clumsy form – in certain sentence structures – of working around “eliding.” The insurmountable problem with English is its unparalleled bounty of nearly a million words – sheesh! I sense, incidentally, that many “additions” to the language are merely admissions of ignorance of precise terms which already exist, making of those “additions” both mockery of practitioner and evidence of sloth.
Not all change is good. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken.
The mere fact that a thing can be done doesn’t mean that it should be.
I have been following this wonderful discussion ever since my mother pointed out my use of snuck in a poem I wrote. As to the previous question of age and location I am 37 and grew up mostly in Southern California. Sneaked still sounds wrong to my ears, but I’m working on it. ^_^
My comment today is regarding texting. Much to the frustration of my two teenage boys I continue to respond to their messages with replies such as, “You mean you would like to go to THEIR house?” Hopefully it will sink in even though they protest that, “It’s just texting, Mom!”
I do attribute my love of language to my parents rather than school. My mom inspired me with her apparently perfect spelling and punctuation skills, (I still call when I’m in doubt) and my dad who would read the history of words to us from his two volume dictionary. It came with a much needed magnifying glass and had wonderful stories explaining how each word originally came into use and how it evolved over time. That history reminds me that language is in constant motion, but I do wish it could at least be used correctly by reporters and advertisers.
Heather Ann ~ It’s good to have your input! You and I share the “Thanks to my mother …” syndrome. I’m so grateful for the guidance of mine! Something else (completely off the subject) I’ve noticed about mothers and daughters is that, more often than not, the amount of (or lack of) face make-up the daughter wears is similar to that of her mother.
(I suppose a rebellious, goth girl would be one of the exceptions.) Maybe I’m way off-base on that one, but my theory is based on personal observation.
I’m happy to see that I’m not the only “annoying” mother, reminding my kids when they make mistakes (which doesn’t happen very often, as their vocabulary and grammar skills have filtered down to them) — When my youngest son calls me on my car phone, and asks, “Where’re you at?” I answer, “I’m AT in the car, on Taylor Boulevard.” He’s like two different people, speaking the “lazy speak” to friends, and then showing flawless speech when in a group of older adults …
This has turned into a fascinating discussion, with many promising tributaries veering off the “main path” — So much so that I wonder if there’s a good forum about English grammar and vocabular somewhere on the Web (thanks, Amanda) where those who are interested could “meet.” I’ll bet Amazon has some good ones at the bottom of the pages of some of the English usage books sold on their site. There are so many subjects I’d like to share thoughts about (because most people I know are not terribly interested), and this poor blog has been putting up with us since 2006 (which I realized for the first time the other day)!
What I know is that in middle school, our teacher specifically singled out this verb and its forms, and taught us that it was ‘sneak, sneaked, and sneaked.’ It was pointed out how ‘snuck’ was not even a word, and smacked of an ignorant speaker. Because of this, I have always cringed when I hear the non-word ‘snuck’ and always will. I grate my teeth when supposedly well-educated people on television, specifically news broadcasts, say ‘snuck.’ It makes me want to sneak up behind them and pop them on the head with a ruler.
The comment lately about the English language having over one million words, reminded me of a conversation I had many years ago with a German friend. The German language is very precise. For example, you don’t say “see you later” when talking over the phone, since you can’t actually see the person. You would have to say “talk to you later”. Also, there are masculine and feminine verbs etc.
So my German friend, subscribes to German language publications, because he misses his “rich language”. He opines that there are so many German words for which there are no English equivalents. But I would suggest that there are probably many English words for which there are no German equivalents. He just never hears them because so many people have such a limited vocabulary. I work in the film industry and words like “zoom”, “dutch angle”, “dolly” are used internationally because there ARE no other translations.
We should be proud that in all airport control towers all over the world and in all ports, English is the universal language that is required. Keep up the good fight!
While writing to a friend something about having breathed, it occurred to me that we should perhaps consider a modern refinement, such as “breathe, brathe, bruthe.” “It is well to have bruthe, brother,” or perhaps “..to have bru, bro.” By dint of such shall we create of confusion monumental gobbledygook. Can bruthe be translated to German? Sppooooky! 10/31/2010
Hey, if you can get enough others to go along with it, I wholeheartedly support you. Who decided in 1944 that “gobbledygook” was a word, and how did it become accepted?
The term gobbledygook was coined by former US Representative Maury Maverick, then working for the Smaller War Plants Corporation, in a March 30, 1944 memo banning “gobbledygook language”. It was a reaction to his frustration with the “convoluted language of bureaucrats.” He made up the word as an onomatopoeic imitation of a turkey’s gobble. (As well, he added in jest “”anyone using the words activation or implementation will be shot.” A man after my own heart, he is.)
Obviously, it seemed superbly suited by all who encountered it, and so it passed into common usage. THAT, by the way, is a colorful addition, not an ignorant diminution. Were it to in some way to be botched with something like “gobblegok”, such change would qualify not as color, but as ignorance. Why is this so hard to figure out?
Okay my little pretties…here is my new word.
Skippingest (superlative; definition – for adolescent children who have the record for skipping class); “You are the skippingest bunch of kids.” (usually followed by “You’all beat all”)
I have used this for years in reference to my kids at school.
If winningest can be a word, then so can mine.
Consider it officially added to the English language, and let all know it is my word.
Years from now someone will say, “How did skippingest get into the English language?” Then someone on a blog (probably not us because we will be dead by then) will say, “Trish, an Appalachian English teacher, back in the year 2010 coined the word in response to the overwhelming lack of attendance in Appalachian schools.”
xxxooo
PJohn, although I tend to agree with the nature of point, I disagree with the correlation between that point and the particular case surrounding the word “snuck.” To explain:
“Obviously, it seemed superbly suited by all who encountered it, and so it passed into common usage.”
I feel that the term “gobbledygook” is antiquated. If not antiquated, then I’m at least averse to it because it certainly sounds like something my grandparents would say. No one in my age bracket would ever say “gobbledygook.” Which makes perfect sense! Having that sort of direct context, due to its origin, would make it a perfectly generational phrase. So… a colloquialism! By using the same logic, “snuck” should be perfectly acceptable as well. Early on in this discussion, someone mentioned that “snuck” just sounded sneakier than “sneaked.” Albeit that it’s traditionally incorrect… it still fits logically.
How’s this for another interesting complication of the English language? I just used the word “albeit” and it flowed naturally from my mind to the page. However, as soon as I’d read over what I’d written, it occurred to me that “albeit” is as much of an acceptable contraction as “whereas” or “notwithstanding” yet writing “alright” in place of “all right” is still considered to be uneducated and incorrect. Isn’t the same principle at work here?
Much like “gobbledygook,” use of “snuck” may well only linger for a generation before the tide of common conclusion decides that it’s not appropriate. Until then, I’ll keep using it merrily.
Instead of educating people on a directly memorized path of which word is correct or not, I propose that it’s fundamentally more important that people are educated as to why, and how, they’re using the word. In my education, pronoun antecedent disagreements weren’t discussed until high school! We were taught to memorize which words were correct and which weren’t, but no one seemed to think it was important to discuss the relationships that our words had with one another!
“After Judy and Karen snuck into the movie theater, she asked her if she was scared of being caught.”
In this example (regardless of whether you substitute “sneaked” for “snuck”), the meaning is obfuscated by the ambiguity of the pronouns. Honestly, ask yourself how often you use poor pronoun associations in everyday conversation. Virtually everyone is guilty of this. It’s not technically incorrect… but it’s damned confusing. If the point of communication (and thus language) is to be understood, then simply using an alternative word form is really only a secondary or stylistic issue.
Trish, I knew there was something about you that I liked – I’m a WVa boy who somehow larn’t a bit. “Skippingest” shall be yours, fair lady, so long as you agree not to apply the same logic to the appearance of heavenly bodies as “risingest.” As for myself, I shall claim things less cheery, such as the “corpse” found not to be dead and who thus qualified as the breathingest….
Hmmm – now let’s see. A corpse would be a “which,” and a breathing person a “who.” In the segue above, would then the corrected pronoun become a whooch? Might I be awarded possession?
Edly:
I believe that most of this present confusion can be traced to the caliber of English spoken in the home, and to exposure – nay, devotion – to classical literature in the language. I had gained mastery of pronoun antecedents (for example) long before attending grade school. Did you learn how to diagram sentences? Do they even give youngsters such tools nowadays?
The Judy & Karen construct is indeed nonsensical, and I agree wholeheartedly that such are at best distressing.
“Gobbledygook” antiquated? Surely you jest. The fact that you’d not say it hardly qualifies it as unuseful, but does suggest a certain naivete about yourself, particularly taken in conjunction with your somewhat supercilious remark about your grandparents. May your lifelong pursuit of maturity go just snuckingly.
I teach diagramming sentences. Most of them love it.
I sure loved diagramming sentences ~ It helped to make sense of it all. Some of my classmates HATED it, and I suppose that’s because it wasn’t easy for them. Naturally, the things we learned in school that were difficult to grasp were those we shunned … but there was no better feeling than acquiring an understanding of something that had previously stymied us!
Watching CSI:NY just now, 1330 on 04 Nov 10, one of the characters said “I snuck in…”
Point being that as snuck grows in usage it will eventually replace sneaked, which will first just sound odd, then will be archaic. How long will this take? It’s hard to say, but fighting back against it may slow the use of snuck down and make both acceptable use for quite some time.
“Snuck” sneaked into the language, and I for one am happy to have it. In these economically tight times, think how much could be saved in ink alone by using a word with five characters rather than seven.
Oops! @Trish, I like ‘skippingest” but I thought you were going to use it to describe the really flat stones that skipped the most times across the pond, as in “This stones are the skippingest stones I’ve ever found.” Rather like slipperiest.
Think how much time and ink could be saved if we just burned our libraries and relied on hope and charity.
Wow. I’m so glad that we can all remain civil in this academic debate over an issue that really doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Well I for one, will continue to fight for sneaked. I’ve read the entire post and all the updates. So I understand the argument that language evolves. Like using “aint” in a song, instead of “isn’t”, because it’s one syllable and rhymes easier. Or for words that are created to address new inventions and situations, like the internet. But sneaked/snuck isn’t one of those.
What about the James Bond theme, “Nobody Does it Better”? The lyrics say, “nobody does it half as good as you”, instead of “well”. They are both four letter words and neither is used in rhyme, so why did the writer do it? It just bugs the hell out of me!!
There was a Twilight Zone episode a few years ago that dealt with language. Not the original series, but the one in the 80′s. In this episode, the wife asks her husband if he wants dinosaur for breakfast. He tells her this is not the proper word, but she just shrugs it off. By night, the entire language has changed, so he has to read a children’s primer to relearn the language. Every time I witness a word that “evolves” I think of that episode and hope that doesn’t happen here!
I’m with you, Mark — We shall fight the good fight! All I can say is that I had to use WD-40 on one of the doors in my house today, because -when I opened it- it cruck terribly.
I enjoyed the recounting of the Twilight Zone episode. I never did see the newer series, but the one that will forever stay in my mind from the original series is the one about the woman who has plastic surgery, in order to look “attractive” like the majority of her peers. Unfortunately, she is told that the surgery was a failure, and the doctor and nurses recoil at seeing her “ugliness.” When the faces of all the characters are shown at the end, the viewer sees that the woman is what we would call beautiful — It is the others who are “ugly” and monstrous-looking, by our standards. (Naturally, Rod Serling’s voice-over at the end reminded us of the adage, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”)
“Nobody does it half as good as you” reminds me that no one here ever offered their opinion on MY pet-peeve lyrics, “Everything I do I do it for you.” I thought that song should have been a flop, based on the poor grammar alone!
I agree, the words to the song, “everything I do, I do it for you” aren’t the best use of grammar. But really, what would you change it to, keeping the same meter? “All the things I do, I do them for you”, sounds weird.
“Everything I do, they are for you”, sounds strange too. How about, “all the things I do, are be-cause of you”?
As long as we’re talking (now) about song lyrics, what about the song “Dankeshein”. This song uses only one German word and mispronounces it. It’s pronounced “danke-schoon”, not “Danke-shane”. That scene in Ferris Buller drives me crazy!
Hi Mark and Donna Lee,
I remember the original Twilight Zone episode (I saw it the first time around, so yes I’m that old) and the episode from the 80′s series. I can’t remember the title of the episode but I do remember it was based on a science fiction short story. The author was trying to show how the Tower of Babel effect would be if it happened in modern times. If you think about it, that is what we are all going through now at a slower pace. Future Shock by Alvin Toffler (1970) describes the idea. I seem to recall he was mostly talking about technology and social mores, but change in language would certainly cause the same effect. We speak the same language as Great Britain but look at the changes 200 years have made.
I recollect the first time I came across “He got the wind up”, meaning he became suspicious and being confused because I wondered what he was doing getting ready to pitch something. You can imagine the fun Brits have when we talk of shagging flies in the infield, but my daughter-in-law from Scotland was shocked the first time she heard someone here say he fell on his fanny.
Oh, in looking up sneaked vs snuck I ran into slinked vs slunk, and found it had gone in the opposite direction, with slunk being originally accepted form and now slinked is more acceptable. How about stink and stunk? Anyone for stinked? Sink and sunk? Skink and skunk-no, wait, those are two different critters. Better stop now.
Roger ~ “Shagging flies in the infield” — Hilarious! After living in the UK, I’ve never again used the word “fanny” ~ I cringe inside when Americans say “fanny-pack.” I call it a hip-pack, but, of course, those who don’t know the British vocabulary can hardly be blamed.
Years ago, a British guy friend told me he’d “knock me up” for a game of tennis the next day. I knew what he meant, but I couldn’t resist playing the innocent American, and saying, “The hell you WILL!”
Mark, in my original post, I explained what I think is incorrect grammar in the Bryan Adams song — Shouldn’t it be “Everything I do I do for you?” (without the superfluous ‘it?’) It’s like “Whatever I buy I buy for you,” over “Whatever I buy I buy it for you?” There’s no need for the “it,”
and I don’t think there would be any place for that word in a diagram of that sentence.
Your comments on the Danke Schoen song opens up a whole new, smelly can of worms! I know that not everyone is able to pronounce foreign words correctly, but could we at least TRY?? I live in California, where there are lovely Spanish names on our state map and our street signs, etc. I live near Mt. Diablo, and there are a zillion schools, businesses and the like in the area that use the word ‘Diablo.’ I am shocked at the number of people who call it DYE-ABB-LOW. Come on, now ~ Who doesn’t know of the Spanish word Diablo? Who doesn’t pick up on the fact that, in most languages besides ours, the vowels are “short?” A main street in our area is Ygnacio Valley Boulevard, but about 90% of the people here call it IGG-NAY-SHEE-OH Valley. Granted, that’s a tougher one, but my kids (not wanting their mother to be ‘different,’ used to ask me why I pronounced it the Spanish way (Igg-nah-see-oh) — I told them that I want to show respect for the language that adds charm to the area, and that -furthermore- we would never say GRAY-SHEE-US, instead of Gracias.
My kids think I shouldn’t give a second thought to such things, but I reminded them of the time long ago, when I called a “grand slam” a “home run with the bases loaded, “and they laughed me out of the room (and still retell that to others, today). Whatever each of us really cares about is a little “sacred” to us. For my sons, that’s sports; for me, it’s the spoken and written word!
http://lifehacker.com/5684111/forget-about-perfect-grammar-and-just-write-well
Not sayin’ this is directed at anyone here…
Donna Lee, I grew up in the Bay Area and lived in Walnut Creek for a couple of years. I refused to pronounce Ygnacio the non-Spanish way. Though I did finally capitulate to mispronouncing Monticello. I was a fan of the Edge of Night, set in mythical mon-ti-sell-oh, so I gave up my opposition.
Another thing that bothers me is “ones”. I could be wrong, but I’m nearly certain “ones” is not a word. If it is, it is almost never used correctly. Especially when people say “these ones” or “those ones”. No, it’s just “these” or “those”. Or anyplace else you may see it, it can usually be worded a better way.
Also when people answer the telephone, “It’s me.” No, “It is I.” Or if someone is asking to speak to someone else, and you are that someone else, “This is he/she.” Just my two pet-peeves.
I’m sorry, but if I called someone, and they answered, “it is I,” and they were serious, I’d hang up and not endeavor any future contact. Wait, did I use endeavor correctly?
Marcello,
You are a hoot!
Hilarious.
xxxooo
Having read all the posts below, I notice a mistake that even some of the grammar pundits make frequently, so please note: In America, periods and commas always go inside quotation marks. In Britain, it’s the reverse. And, BTW, Wikipedia consistently makes this mistake. (If they are headquartered in the U.K., I suppose it’s OK.)
Hey, Judge … That is interesting! I never noticed that! Personally, I find the American way awkward, and have always WANTED to do it the other way around. Another American/British disparity is “family-oriented” vs. “family-orientated.” There’s a really interesting write-up on the two, posted “Ken Greenwald (Fort Collins, CO – U.S.A.)” about a third of the page down, at the following link:
http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6986
Marcelo, I agree with your view that “It is I” is stiff and unnatural-sounding, although I do say, “This is she.” I guess we all have to draw our own lines between what we consider correct and what we consider ridiculous-sounding!
I’ll add another commonly-used word usage that grates on me every time I hear it — THAT, instead of WHO. It seems so simple ~ a “who” is a person, and a “that” is a thing … and yet, I often hear (even from news personalities), “These are the people that were referred to.” I always think of Barbra Streisands famous song, “People.” Wouldn’t it have sounded horrible if she had sung, “People … People that love people … are the luckiest people in the world?” (Now, what I just typed fits into the realm of what I consider awkward (American) quotation rules — There should NOT be a question mark after the song lyrics, but rather after MY question, and yet the rule dictates that I put that question mark inside the quotation marks.)
I’m wondering this, though: If we use a word like “teachers,” is “that” or “which” more acceptable, since “teacher” is a profession held by a person? In my own speech, I still use “teachers who …” Any thoughts about this? (I’m asking before I look it up on the web, which sometimes leads to even more questions, rather than clear answers.)
A fondt this site waal A’s tryin’ t’fahnd eht whether or not “snuck” was a gradely word. A’d sin it ont telly – written dehn on a blackbooard wi some schoo’ childer arguin’ abeht it.
Neh, it favvers uz it’s awreet i’ America but no’ o’er here in Merry Owd England – wheer we aw speyk gradely English.
“Snuck or Sneaked”? Nayther! Here i’ Lancashire (God’s own country), we say “snaked” -so awt lot on yer’ve getten it wrung!
Translations from Lancashire English into lesser tongues are available on request.
Dave, you are my new personal hero.
Wow, Dave … This brought me back to my experience reading Train Spotting! A challenge at first, but then I sort of fell into it.
Thanks, Edly and Donna Lee. Nice to be appreciated! Lancashire dialect was the first English dialect I learnt ( learned?) and I was only introduced to the vastly more popular ( for some strange reason) dialect known as Queen’s English when I first attended school “monny an ‘ear sin’.”
The old dialect is dying out, of course, but there are still pockets of resistance. Und, tha knows, we’ll feyt ont beaches, in th’ills, int fieldts un’ t’woods un’ on th’internet fot save it. We’ll ne’er surrender!
For now, though, A think uz A’d best be snakin’ off wom. Mi tay’ll be ready, happen.
This is off the sneaked/snuck topic, but still about grammar. (There! I’ve justified my post!) I’m doing some online Christmas shopping, the t.v. is on … A local news/chat show is on, and a woman is being interviewed about some product she’s selling — I’ve lost count as to how many times she has said (and this is one of my BIGGEST peeves!), “There’s lots of different options” and “There’s so many options to choose from.”
What EVER happened to THERE ARE?!?!? I am NOT exaggerating, when I say that I hardly EVER hear the words “there are” together!! I think I’d have to go back a few years ago, when this laziest of English grammar usage had not yet caught on, to hear people on t.v., radio and real life say, “There are a number of options …” and “Here are some books you might like.” Try listening for this (if you dare … or if you care) — You’ll be surprised. Unfortunately, I don’t even have to think about it; this kind of stuff automatically makes its way to my ears, whether I want to hear it or not!
To those of you who are in the U.K.: Please tell me this lazy, incorrect pairing of subject and verb has not yet infected your country! End of rant. Now, back to my Christmas shopping.
That bugs me too. I hear most incorrect grammar effortlessly too. I find myself constantly, in my head, correcting people. Your example, and using “I” when one means “me” and vice versa, also drives me up a wall.
But I’m still using “snuck!” ;^)
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