Slinked? Slinked?!?

[davidgillon]

Okay, I know I'm not a fan of US-English standardization of irregular past tense/participle at the best of times, give me a good old-fashioned 't'-ending over 'ed' any day of the week (c.f. meant, leant, smelt, spelt - especially spelt!) but 'slinked'? 'Slinked'?!? Eeuuw!

I mean, c'mon, 'slunk' is almost physically onomatopeic, and is 'to slink' even irregular?

(It cropped up in Dana Cameron's Pack of Strays and I almost physically recoiled from it, though fortunately the rest of the English is much better).

Comments

[heliopausa]

slink, slank, (have) slunk? :)

[redbird]

Slunk, definitely, but this is one of those oddities that doesn't have the middle form, so slink and slunk, but no *slank to parallel sank. (There's also no "slunken," but "sunken" is passive voice, which doesn't make a lot of sense for "slink." Ships, yes.)

On the other hand, we have "snuck," which I gather is still considered "dialect" or "nonstandard" by many people, especially outside the U.S. It's a rare thing in modern English, a more standard verb turning into a strong verb, rather than a shift in the other direction, with "slink" taking on the more standard/regular forms.