SNEAKED OR SNUCK?

Which is correct? (i.e. Is the past tense and past participle of 'sneak' 'sneaked' or is it 'snuck'?)

I sneaked out of school.
I sneaked some alcohol into the party.

OR

I snuck out of school.
I snuck some alcohol into the party.

Or are they both correct?

snuck.

Ben.

'Snuck' is falling out of everyday usage here and getting replaced with 'sneaked'. (an attempt to tiny up or streamline the English language)

Reminds me of 'spelt' vs 'spelled'.

At least here, "snuck" is the primary form by far, and while one may use "sneaked", it just still sounds vaguely wrong somehow nonetheless.

British
i) Sneaked
ii) Dived
iii) Learnt
iv) Spelt
v) Thought

US
i) Snuck
ii) Dove
iii) Learned
iv) Spelled
v) Thunk (I like that word!!)

<<v) Thunk (I like that word!!)>>

It is a fun one :) However, that's not the normal word for "thought" for the vast majority of North American speakers. When it's used, it's used ironically or playfully, as in the expression "who'da thunkit?"

I exclusively say "snuck" for the preterit of "sneak." This is the most common usage altho some do say "sneaked." Both are correct so one's validity over another's shouldn't even be questioned here.

Yeah, I realized "thunk" is generally only used playfully. I think what makes it a good word is that it sounds immediately wrong, but at the same time, in many respects, it's perfectly correct; drink, drunk, sink, sunk, stink, stunk etc.....

"Thunk" sounds cute, but I still like my dialect's weirdass past participle "thoughten" better. :D

Yeah it arose out of analogy with those words, of course. Analogy has played a not insignificant role in the historical development of English verbs. For instance, "hidden" was not the original past participle of "hide." "Hidden" came about in analogy with "ride/ridden" and now "hidden" is a form no one thinks twice about using.

'Thoughten', Travis? Never heard that around here, although 'boughten' is used pretty regularily here.

>>'Thoughten', Travis? Never heard that around here, although 'boughten' is used pretty regularily here.<<

I posted about this a bit back on Unilang, but just to fill you in, it seems that at least in my dialect, a whole series of parallel irregular irregular weak forms have been innovated, which include not just the prototypical "boughten", but also "broughten", "caughten", "thoughten", "taughten", "foughten", and "soughten".

What I suspect is the case here is that "boughten" is the original innovation, since it exists in dialects where the other forms listed above do not exist, such as yours, and the other forms were created by analogy with "boughten".

Such is quite strange, in that it is a whole class of weak past participles which have the strong past participle ending /@n/ after the weak past/PP suffix /t/, rather than a mere simple incidental innovation limited to a single word.

I very occasionally hear "boughten" here but it's usually "bought." The other forms Travis listed are unheard of here.

<I exclusively say "snuck" for the preterit of "sneak." This is the most common usage altho some do say "sneaked." Both are correct>

Are you serious? "Sneaked" is certainly correct, but "snuck" is the equivalent of "thunk". They're joke-words.

>>I very occasionally hear "boughten" here but it's usually "bought." The other forms Travis listed are unheard of here.<<

I would really like to know where such forms are even heard of, much the less used, at all; I find myself using them naturally, yet I have not heard of them outside everyday speech anywhere at all. However, though, I have gotten hits on Google for all of the words listed above, some for more of them than for others, which indicates that such is unlikely to be a solely local phenomena.

One thing interesting about some of the hits, though, is that the text including the words is clearly Eary Modern English, which indicates that this is likely not a new thing but rather is something that likely has survived until the present in some dialects and was transmitted to NAE dialects (well, at least mine) even though it has been completely absent in the literary forms of Late Modern English and most likely most dialects of it.

>>One thing interesting about some of the hits, though, is that the text including the words is clearly Eary Modern English, which indicates that this is likely not a new thing but rather is something that likely has survived until the present in some dialects and was transmitted to NAE dialects (well, at least mine) even though it has been completely absent in the literary forms of Late Modern English and most likely most dialects of it.<<

Ignore this. The texts were actually *Middle English*, and from looking over a translation of one, the word in question, "soughten" and the morphologically related "besoughten", likely has little or nor connection to the form present in Late Modern English or at least its use.