Sneaked vs Snuck

We all know the English language is full of weird and complicated rules. I don’t think I’ll ever get it figured out.

I didn’t learn english until we moved to America when I was nearly 7 years old. I started second grade knowing how to say “yes”, “no”,  and “apple”. By third grade I tested out of ESOL (english as a second language class) although they made me take the test twice because they thought I couldn’t possibly be that smart. I fooled them the second time as well.

Still, over the next 9 grueling school years the only grammar rule I learned was “I before E except after C and when sounding like A as in neighbor and weigh”.

Shame on me! My writing goes by a “does it sound weird” standard.

To get to the point of my story: I have absolutely NO authority for dictating the correct use of language, and there’s a good chance I have about 100 grammatical errors so far in this post alone.

Recently when I read a certain cozy mystery, I found myself bothered by the language because they kept saying “sneaked”. I sneaked here, I sneaked there, I sneaked everywhere.

I had a very strong belief that the correct word choice was “snuck”. Sneaked just sounds lazy because you can make almost any word past tense by adding “ed” to it. (Washed, Walked, Waited). Snuck sounds more legitimate because it’s transition to past tense doesn’t make sense.

When I asked my husband, who was born in Texas and has a much stronger grasp of the english language, he didn’t know which one was correct either.

According to the internet, both forms are actually accepted now, but sneaked is the preferred and original choice by grammar gurus and english teachers. Snuck has only been accepted for the last 10-20 years. I guess I better get used to it.

Which word do you prefer?