Comments on: Sneaked Versus Snuck & Past Tense Versus Past Participle

By: Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:05:48 +0000

Actually, it shows that I rushed responding to a comment this morning when getting up.

But you know, I think all the comments that need to happen on this post are done, so I’m closing them.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:03:32 +0000

Danny, Mark’s typo was far more acceptable and understandable than your typoS. I had to double check prerequisites. Hyphenated? One word? Not something one comes across to often in common writing. However, “to” vs. “two,” placing a past participle after “to,” and “both both” just shows laziness, stupidity, or ignorance. Sorry.

By: Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:45:43 +0000

Yes, Mark, two. And I don’t mean to pick, but you’re not talking about grammatical errors I made but rather typos. I’ll fix them to make you happy. And, I think given your space bar goof, you understand these are pretty easy to do.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:33:38 +0000

Ha! I was posting that just as you corrected yourself. Cheers!

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:32:29 +0000

Sorry, Mark. It’s “prerequisites.” If you can deal it, you’ve got to take it. I’ve been receiving post-updates on this topic for over a year now. In all honesty, snuck is more commonly recognized (in the US). This does not make it “correct,” but there are far worse issues at hand here. In this bastardized acronym-text-world of ours, can we at least agree to fight “LOLs” and “BRBs” with as much, if not more, vehemence as we do here? People like pedantic grammar nazis about as much as they do granolas and hipsters. Please, pick your battles wisely, friends.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:30:28 +0000

Ooops, hit the space bar by mistake. Meant to say “prerequisites”.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:14:13 +0000

Danny, Danny, Danny, you have “to children”? Don’t you mean “two children”? “regional accents to developed”? “English both both”? I don’t mean to pick (well maybe I do) but it seems to me that one of the pre requisites to entering into a discussion of grammar, is not to make grammatical mistakes in the process!

By: Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:45:22 +0000

Dave, in the US, people talk about “baby bumps” and “chatting people up” and all types of things that are Britishism.

It goes both ways, I can assure you. It’s also not harmful, given I have two children who are half-American and half-British. They merrily speak English both UK/US and mixed just fine.

If God hadn’t wanted this type of mixture, to the degree he even cares about it, it wouldn’t have allowed television to have been invented. Or for people to migrate. My goodness, we wouldn’t have allowed so many different regional accents to developed within Britain itself (far more than in the US), to the degree you have a debate over whether Received Pronunciation is “correct” or not.

By: Son of a Harvard English grad

Son of a Harvard English grad — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:39:55 +0000

Dave,

And we are quite happy to let you go on using your own peculiar strain of English. It’s not like either side of the pond is using the same language that both of our strains come from. In fact, as I may have stated before, the closest strain to that original language is used by an ever-shrinking portion of the populace in Boston, Massachusetts (or so the article I read claimed).

What strikes me as odd is your insistence that “these strange Americanisms” are not welcome in the UK even though you point out, quite ironically, that everyone over there (except you of course) seems to be using them without any issue at all.

If God hadn’t wanted the English to say “snuck” he wouldn’t have allowed communication across the Atlantic between the UK and the USA, now would he?

By: Dave N

Dave N — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:09:58 +0000

I am quite happy to let you Americans go on using your own peculiar strain of English. What I am bothered about is the fact that these strange Americanisms are increasingly being accepted as correct over here in the UK. British children are being exposed to this unwanted American import which is increasingly heard on British television – from the mouths of British TV presenters.
If God had wanted the English to say “snuck” he wouldn’t have put the Atlantic between the UK and the USA, now would he?