Cynthia,
"Snuck" is an interesting case. It's actually a pretty recent innovation. The OED defines it only as a "chiefly US past tense and participle of 'sneak'" and does not provide examples. However, "sneak" itself is of fairly recent attestation, dating back only to 1596, although there's a possible cognate in Old Norse that would be about 800 years older. "Sneak" is historically a weak verb, and is that also in Modern Standard English, so its past tense would be "sneaked". However, it is almost universally "snuck" in common usage in the US. "Drag" is similar, a weak verb that has taken on the form "drug" as a past and past participle. What's happened here is that "sneak" and "drug" have been reanalyzed as strong verbs, that is, verbs that change tense by changing the vowel and not by adding a -d or a -t. But unlike the three forms that most strong verbs have, as in "take/took/taken", these two have only two, like weak verbs: sneak/snuck/snuck instead of sneak/sneaked/sneaked. This reversal of the overall trend in English verb forms from strong to weak--"help" used to be strong, the pp "holpen" occurring in the King James Version--is at the very least peculiar. It's rare that the more complex, less regular form would be the basis of analogy. Usually it's the more regular form that acts this way. "Sneak", in some dialects including Buffalo NY, and Santa Monica, CA, has a distinct past plural form, so those speakers say "I snuck" but "we snook". What makes this form even more bizarre is that fact that up into Middle English, English had a past plural form in strong verbs that was distinct from the infinitive, the past singular, and the past participle. An example of this would be the Old English verb for "to drive", "drifan", where the /f/ between vowels would be pronounced [v]. It's principal parts were (where a double vowel indicates a long vowel)
infinitive driifan
past singular draaf
past plural drifon
past participle gedrifen
Now, "snook" is not a reversal of the Early Middle English loss of the past plural form. Historical change simply does not reverse itself that way. It's simply a curious modern innovation that, by coincidence, expresses a meaning that an OE form with the same meaning expressed.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Cynthia Baird
Sent: Mon 2/19/2007 8:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: scared vs. afraid help
Wow! Thanks to all of you who took the time to respond to my post! I love this listserve!
I appreciate all of the insights you experts provided. Herb, I do think my students can understand a grammatical explanation better than a linguistic explanation like Linda's (I was finally able to resurrect my linguistical knowledge and understand what Linda was saying and agreed with her explanation. Her explanation just would not help high school or junior high students). I also agree with Craig that we shouldn't shrink from grammatical explanations. I think that such explanations will help students when they are on their own as students or writers. I also think my students would understand levels of registry because I stress that concept to them in order to avoid squelching their natural or creative speech patterns. I also fully understand that if my students are not able to understand my corrections, then I should just leave their language usage alone!
I was fascinated by the explanation, I think it was Herb's, of the etymology of the word "afraid." As a native speaker of some of the southern/Applachian dialect that is unfamiliar to the students I teach, I am now aware that I use some of the archaic past participles that few speakers in my area of teaching use (e.g., I say "woken" rather than "awakened" and "snuck" rather than "sneaked"). I find students appreciate it when I can trace the development of a certain usage issue. Gives them the hope that their particular idiosyncratic usage might someday be acceptable!
I guess that if my students show up in your classes writing "I was scared of the dog" most of you would be okay with that?!
I value this listserve because it keeps me current with what post-secondary instructors are doing and it keeps me current with the changes in the English language throughout the country. I don't want to be stuck in my ways for no good reason!
Thanks
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