Grammar

Sneaked or Snuck: Don’t Let the Wrong One Sneak In!

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Sneaked or snuck? There’s one right answer and one answer that is slowly becoming more accepted just because it has become commonplace.

Everyone who works in a newsroom has at least one. Some have a list they’re often adding to as they hear words that hit them like nails on a chalkboard.

For an anchor I work with, snuck is just such a word.

The past tense of sneak is sneaked, as in:

Greg sneaked into the classroom while the professor was writing on the smartboard.

Yes, that sentence makes me feel old. Classrooms have smartboards these days; when I was in school, it was green chalkboards with an endless supply of yellow chalk dust.

Some people assume, however, that the past tense is “snuck:”

Greg snuck out of the classroom early to get the best seat on the bus.

My anchor friend would cringe at such a sentence.

“Snuck” is considered “non-standard,”&nbsp which is a polite way of saying it isn’t a word.

“Irregardless” is also non-standard. That’s another word on his list, by the way.

A non-standard word is one you shouldn’t use in formal settings, but is one you’ll probably hear in informal settings, whether you like it or not. Such is life.

Sneaked accompanied sneak as its past participle when it arrived in our language in the 1500s, according to Merriam-Webster. Snuck, as words go, is relatively young: Dictionary.com says it appeared in the late 19th century.

“Snuck,” however, has been growing in popularity, and that’s likely because some people think it sounds better than sneaked.

Over at Daily Writing Tips, Maeve Maddox says “snuck”&nbsp sounds better:

To my ear “sneaked” does not sound right. Somehow snuck seems sneakier than sneaked. For me the principal parts are sneak/snuck/(have) snuck.

However, Maddox adds that she still wouldn’t use “snuck”&nbsp in formal writing; she’d choose a different word altogether to avoid the more correct, but worse-sounding option.

Sometimes, when the “right” word sounds like the wrong one, we may well have to go to Plan B.

Which do you prefer? Which sounds better to you as the past participle of sneak: sneaked or snuck?

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.

3 Comments

  • I’m embarrassed to admit that for a long time I thought snuck was the correct word – until I saw it in a book with no incorrect words. No mean feat, considering the number of books with poor mistakes in them.

  • I actually encountered this problem in a Facebook post one day. I used snuck but then wondered whether that was correct and I should use sneaked. I mentioned this dilemma in the post itself and that soon became the topic of conversation in the comments. We all agreed that sneaked was the correct word to use but that, especially when speaking, we tend to use snuck.

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