>Descriptivist that I am, I still think,When I read that, my heart...did something not good. Descriptivist that I am, I still like to use Good Grammar and it looks like I didn't. And still, dang it, my heart sunk still sounds OK to me! Is it because I spent many formative years in Texas? Or could it possibly be that I am on the cutting edge of language drift, for once? Is sunk replacing sank as the past tense of sink, I hope? Or did I actually (shudder) make a mistake?
> as a man of letters, that the resources of a
> language that lead to clarity of communication
> should be both used and preserved. That's why
> my heart sunk when I entered a store...
Speaking of preserving resources that lead to clarity, what ever happened to the simple past tense "sank"?
I decided to ask the only source that knows a lot and will still give you a really quick answer: Google. I googled on heart sunk and got "about 13,700" hits. That was encouraging. At least I'm not alone. But then I googled on heart sank and got "about 137,000" hits. Uh-oh. I'm not alone, but I'm definitely in the minority.
I tried it with some other phrases: his ship sank: 1730, his ship sunk: 434. A better percentage but still a minority. Finally, I tried this sentence: I sank to my knees rounded up 3370, while I sunk to my knees got 864. Even descriptively I would have to admit, then, that my English was non-standard. (By the way, Google asked me on the last-named search if I meant "I link to my knees." No, but that's a really cool sentence.)
So, Anonymous, I'm sorry, man. You nailed me on that one. But check back in 30-40 years, OK? I'll bet you that sunk will be winning by then.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteDon't fret so over it! As long as you don't replace Nuclear with Nucular (as another Texan has), you are ahead of the game!