Last week I found the word slinked in manuscripts submitted by two different members of my writers’ group. In both mss I drew a wavy line under it to represent the shudder that the -ed past ending on this verb stirred in me.

The principal parts of slink are slink/slunk/slunk.:

Then I got to thinking about various verbs that rhyme with slink and realized that although slinked pushed my shudder button, I have no problem with winked. And while I accept slunk as the simple past of slink, I’ll never become reconciled to the movie title Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I want it to be Honey, I Shrank the Kids.

The verb shrink has an additional kink: the attributive form shrunken.
Ex. My sweater has shrunk in the wash.
BUT
Just look at this shrunken sweater!

Here are some more verbs that rhyme with slink. I’ll define only those that I think may be unfamiliar to some readers.

clink/clinked/clinked
“to make a sharp, abrupt metallic sound”
The chain clinked as he walked.

blink/blinked/blinked
The prisoner blinked in the bright sun.

drink/drank/drunk
Like shrink, drink has an attributive form ending in -en: He walks like a drunken sailor.

fink/finked/finked
“to inform on”
The petty criminal finked on his boss.

kink/kinked/kinked
“to twist or curl stiffly, especially at one point.
The hose kinked at the worst possible time.

pink/pinked/pinked
“to cut or perforate”
The tailor pinked the edges of the cloth.

stink/stank/stunk
The garbage stank up the house.
The Compact OED gives stunk as an option for the simple past.

think/thought/thought
He thought a long time before making a decision.

ink/inked/inked
Her job was to ink the platen press.

link/linked/linked
The blogger linked to several sites.

sink/sank/sunk
The boat sank in a squall.
Like shrink and drink, sink has an attributive form ending in -en: He’s looking for sunken treasure.

skink/skinked/skinked
Yes, this is a word in the OED:

skink: v. trans. To draw or pour out (alcoholic drink), to decant; to offer or serve (wine, etc.) to a person.

Saad Khan asks to know the difference between being and been.

Been is the past participle form of the verb to be. It is used with the auxiliary verbs has, have, and had to form perfect tenses:

How long has it been since you were in Paris?
He had been writing that novel for thirty years when he died.
How long have you been living here?

Being is the present participle form of the verb to be. It is used with the auxiliaries is, are, was, and were to form continuous tenses:

Mary is being difficult.
The letter is being written.

It is used as a verbal, a word that partakes of both verb and noun:

Being polite is more productive than being rude.

The word being can also be used a noun meaning “creature.”

No human being should be homeless.
I watched a movie about a being from outer space.

Being can also mean “existence.”

We are called from nothingness into being.

In the expression “for the time being,” it means “the present.”

We’ll leave him in charge for the time being.

Shubhankar Adhikari writes:

My query concerns phrases such as “one of the largest,” “one of the biggest”;, et al. Is it OK to use these expressions. Should we not use “one of the larger”? After all, we are comparing things. My journalism instructor thinks the superlative cannot be used, as there cannot be more than one “largest”.

The rule for the use of the superlative is that it is used in the comparison of three or more things.

Chicago Manual of Style:

A superlative adjective expresses the relationship between at least three things and denotes an extreme of intensity or amount in a particular shared quality: the biggest house on the block, the bitterest pill of all. –5.87

Penguin Writer’s Manual

At least three things must be involved in a comparison for the superlative to be the appropriate form of the adjective to use–though it is also used when the number of things involved is unspecified: John is the tallest of the three boys. It is the cheapest option currently on offer. p.33.

According to the rule, expressions such as “one of the biggest,” and “one of the greatest” are incorrect. In use, however, they are quite common:

. . . ethanol not only hurts the environment, it’s also one of America’s biggest political boondoggles

One of the biggest diamonds ever found discovered in South Africa

. . . one of the finest whitewater rafting outfitters in the country.

Gordon Ramsay is one of the Greatest Television Chefs

What happens to these examples if we replace the superlative with the comparative?

1… ethanol not only hurts the environment, it’s also one of America’s bigger political boondoggles
2 One of the bigger diamonds ever found discovered in South Africa
3 one of the finer whitewater rafting outfitters in the country.
4 Gordon Ramsay is one of the Greater Television Chefs

Not much is lost in 1. and 3., but 2. (a headline) loses its “wow” factor and 4. sounds odd.

Even H.W.Fowler acknowledged that some idiomatic expressions can be allowed to break the rule:

Use of the comparative instead of the superlative would be pedantry in such phrases as Put your best foot foremost; May the best man win; Get the best of both worlds . . . –A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2nd edition.

Writers need to know the rules, but they also need to have an ear for idiom.

Brian Shone writes:

I work for the NHS and I attend many meetings during the week, a common term used throughout each meeting is “and also” this I believe is incorrect. This term is also used in my Catholic Church liturgy; The Lord be with you, and also with you. Should we be using two words together that mean the same?

Although the addition of “also” after “and” is often verbose, the two words do not mean quite the same thing.

And is a conjunction. It joins words, phrases and clauses.

Also is an adverb meaning “in the same manner, in addition, as well.” It’s useful when some sort of contrast is wanted.

Compare the following pairs:

This new policy is intended to stop pilfering and save money.
This new policy is intended to stop pilfering and also save money.

Remodeling will improve safety and attract new customers.
Remodeling will improve safety and also attract new customers.

In the first pair, the two ideas–stopping pilfering and saving money–are so closely related that the and is sufficient.

In the second pair, the connection between the two ideas–improving safety and attracting new customers–is not perhaps as obvious, so the also has a purpose.

The line from the Catholic liturgy quoted above is the ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy) rendering of Latin Dominus vobiscum, et cum spiritu tuo, literally, “The Lord be with you, and with your spirit.” This particular translation happens to be one of many that have come under fire by critics of an English rendering of the Catholic Missal made in the Sixties. When the dust settles, the line will probably be amended to “and with your spirit.”

The speakers in the business meetings who throw in also after and may feel that the extra word adds weight to whatever it is they are saying. Generally speaking, “also” is redundant following “and.”

DM wonders about

the usage of words such as “cast, broadcast, and cost.” As far as I can remember the past tense and past P. of broadcast is broadcast; however recently I checked an online dictionary and it has broadcasted. Is this an American standard or has it always been like this?


The three examples, cast, broadcast, and cost belong to that dwindling category of “strong” verbs that continue to change their past forms.

Broadcasted has already made the leap. The alternate form broadcasted is in the big dictionaries on both sides of the Atlantic. Merriam-Webster lists it among the inflected forms:

broadcast also broadcasted; broadcast also broadcasted; broadcasting; broadcasts

The OED gives it a nod in very tiny type after its definition of the radio transmission use: Inflected pa. tense and pa. pple. broadcast. occas. broadcasted.

AskOxford is unequivocally accepting:

broadcast: verb (past broadcast; past part. broadcast or broadcasted) 1 transmit by radio or television.

Although broadcasted has gained acceptance in the realm of radio transmissions, I would hesitate to use the -ed form to refer to sowing.

Broadcast entered the language as an adjective to describe the spreading, or casting, of seed by hand, as opposed to planting it in furrows or holes. The first recorded use of the adjective is 1767. The first documented use of broadcast as a verb, still in the context of spreading seed, is 1813. It acquired its radio sense in 1921.

When it comes to the regularized forms “costed’ and “casted,” writers will want to exercise caution.

In modern usage casted is not universally accepted. It’s not even in the online Merriam-Webster Abridged (yet).

It is in the OED, but only as an obsolete form of cast.

“Elijah Wood was casted as Frodo Baggins,” sounds horribly incorrect to my ears, but an online search for casted without quotation marks brings up 3,030,000 hits; with quotation marks, 1,250,000. These numbers suggest that “casted” as the past tense of cast, at least in the context of choosing actors for a role, will eventually make it into standard usage.

The form “casted” also crops up as a suffix in computer jargon:

Using modern OpenGL and GLSL for preprocessing and ray-casted visualization, the BlockMap and its evolution are used to build a realtime multiresolution renderer for large urban models.

The OED entry offers 83 numbered definitions for cast as a verb, including its use to express the casting of metal, the casting of lots, and the casting of aspersions. For these the standard past form is undeniably cast. (My search also turned up numerous examples of the nonstandard form “casted” in connection with the casting of metal.)

Costed has not replaced past tense of cost in ordinary speech. I don’t think that many native speakers above the age of five would say “The gum ball costed a quarter.”

As a transitive verb meaning “to estimate or fix the cost of production of an article or piece of work,” however, the accepted past form is costed:

Rich world money systems place no value on coral or Amazonian rainforest. They cannot be traded, so they cannot be costed.