In my entry on "Awhile vs A While", my example sentence used the word snuck. Two readers have pointed out that no such word exists and that the proper past tense of sneak is sneaked.
Well, yes and no. Snuck is an acceptable past tense of sneaked but it has fallen into disfavour. When this happened, I'm not sure. But it's still a legitimate word found on the Merriam-Webster and the Oxford dictionary. However, its usage is in rapid decline and sneaked is now the preferred past tense form.
AskOxford.com provides an interesting note on snuck:
From the beginning, and still in standard British English, the past tense and past participle forms are sneaked. Just as mysteriously, in a little more than a century, a new past tense form, snuck, has crept and then rushed out of dialectal use in America, first into the areas of use that lexicographers label jocular or uneducated, and more recently, has reached the point where it is a virtual rival of sneaked in many parts of the English-speaking world. But not in Britain, where it is unmistakably taken to be a jocular or non-standard form.
I think therefore, the best bet is avoid using snuck if it causes confusion in communication.
