[antedating] "snuck" 1881

[Amy West]

"Snuck" was recently discussed in the office shared by the adjunct
instructors: one spotted it in a student's paper, asked about it, and
I directed her to a dictionary (ta-da!) (MW C10) where the form was
listed and there was a nice little usage note about it. She treated
it as a "marked"/"disapproved"/"informal" form.

What I wonder about it is what strong verb pattern (ablaut) is it
being modeled on?

---Amy West

>Date:    Sat, 24 Nov 2007 09:19:13 -0800
>From:    Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject: [antedating] "snuck" 1881
>
>I was caught yesterday in the middle of one of those tedious
>discussions about whether "snuck" is a "real word."  I affirmed that
>it was, at least in the good ol' U.S. of A.  When
>    that didn't work I tried sarcasm:  "If it isn't a word, what is
>it?"  This was met by knowing nods on the one side and looks of
>disbelief and pity on the other. Clearly _argumentum ad
>authoritatem_ does not work in such cases.

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