Trouble in Paradise

Gretchen's post, "I Need A Little Backup Here," prompted me to share this story of spousal conflict.

It started after Matt put the kids to bed last night while I made a mama-time trip to TJ Maxx and SuperTarget. I know, we take our thrills where we can. At TJ's I had the satisfaction of finding and carrying away the Best Thing There. It is a Velvet brand tie-front cardigan/shrug thing. Kind of a ballerina sweater, only in black jersey knit. You know, where it only covers your rib cage and makes a big tie in the front? And it was $20 on clearance. I love that brand, and I never see it at TJ's. And on clearance! What is the matter with you people who live around here? So I came home feeling that I had slain the buffalo in the primeval hunt.

When I got in, Matt said, "Uh oh, Hank has finally figured out that he can get out of bed once we put him down. At ten o'clock, I was at my desk and I heard his little footsteps. He said, 'I sneaked downstairs!' He was very proud of himself."

I said, "Well, I'm just happy that he said 'sneaked' instead of 'snuck!'"

Oh Reader, as soon as the words had left my mouth, I knew that this was the equivalent of tossing a bucket of tasty chum into a shark tank. Not that Matt is a shark, but he strikes like a shark, the most loving and affable shark you could meet.

He said, "Hey, wait a minute. What's wrong with 'snuck'? I say 'snuck.'" I said, "It's wrong. It's not the past tense of 'sneak.' Or it's not WRONG, it's nonstandard." His eyes narrowed. Now I was in it. He is like Mark Twain crossed with a bloodhound when it comes to sniffing out anything hypercorrect or high-falutin'. So, a shark, Mark Twain, and a bloodhound, got it?

He said, "You set up Rock Band while I check on the status of 'snuck.' Then he strode towards the office, and I knew that he was going straight to that godawful Merriam-Webster.com. It's the dictionary he uses because it has a website. I knew that it would be some liberal descriptionist thing that would uphold his defense of snuck. So I boogied into the book room and quickly scanned the shelves for my Bryan Garner Dictionary of Modern American Usage. We met in the office.

He looked triumphant as he gestured to this definition. He read aloud:

"From its earliest appearance in print in the late 19th century as a dialectal and probably uneducated form, the past and past participle snuck has risen to the status of standard and to approximate equality with sneaked. It is most common in the United States and Canada but has also been spotted in British and Australian English."

"Status of standard," he trumpeted. I was ready. I said, "First of all, that is not a prescriptive usage guide, and second, that is total bullshit." (Okay, not a strong rebuttal but I was so irritated.) His eyebrows went up. "'Total bullshit,' that's what you have to say?" So I brandished my Garner:

"Snuck is a nonstandard past tense and past participle of sneak common in American dialectical and informal speech and writing. The standard past form is sneaked."

"See?" I said. "It does not say you are a bad person for saying snuck. It says that it is nonstandard, which is all I am saying, and that if you use snuck you should do so advisedly, ESPECIALLY in writing." Reader, I know you are thinking that this should have put the question to rest. It did not. We embarked on a further exploration of the definition of "standard" as it pertains to spoken and written communication. Here are the highlights:

• He accused me of being no different from an 1890's schoolmarm scolding the young folks for newfangled expressions like okay. I said that was a ridiculous comparison, and also that okay is merely informal, not a non-word like snuck.


• I asked him if he would mark snuck on his students' papers if he taught college composition. He said he would not. And I accused him of educational malpractice.


• We discussed the place on the nonstandard/standard continuum of the expression, "Shorties be sippin' like it's dey birfday."


• I said, "You're just trying to find some way that I'm being a snob!" He insisted that it's just fine with him if I'm a snob but that snuck is most definitely a word and also I am a snob.


• We brought up drug as a nonstandard past form of drag. I said drug and snuck were equivalently wrong in my view, while he thought snuck is far more valid and drug is totally redneck. Interestingly, Garner calls drug a specifically Southern form.


• Dove as a nonstandard past form of dive was also brought up. I suddenly realized that I grew up saying dove, like "I dove in headfirst." I consulted Garner on this, and he only says, "Although dove is fairly common in AmE [American English], dived is the predominant form--and the preferable one." Nowhere in that entry does he use the language of correct/incorrect or standard/nonstandard. Hmm. He doesn't mark that as Southern dialect, but I think it is.


• Matt said that we basically disagree on exactly how nonstandard snuck is. I think it's all the way nonstandard, and he thinks it's "knocking on standard's door." Marital concord was restored.


• We played some Rock Band. I realized that I still know every word to the 1993 Belly hit, "Feed the Tree."

So that was the hot Friday night action at our place. Men, I swear. How can he argue with me when I'm making so much sense?!? Totally infuriating.

Please try not to have too much fun tonight, y'all.