Tuesday, June 30, 2015

shrunk/shrank: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Tuesday, June 30, 2015

shrunk/shrank
The simple past tense form of “shrink” is “shrank” and the past participle is “shrunk”; it should be “Honey, I Shrank the Kids,” not “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.” (Thanks a lot, Disney.)

“Honey, I’ve shrunk the kids” would be standard, and also grammatically acceptable is “Honey, I’ve shrunken the kids” (though deplorable from a child-rearing point of view).



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This is the ten-year anniversary of the Common Errors in English Usage calendar. To celebrate, we are bringing back some of our favorite interesting, funny, but sometimes merely silly entries through the years before going on hiatus in 2016.

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