Wood On Words
Can’t get enough words about words with Sunday’s newspaper column? Then this blog’s for you, my word-craving friend. I work the late shift, so don’t look for responses until the next day.

Archive for May 29th, 2008

Plink, plank, plunk, or not

Add comment May 29th, 2008

What can I tell you about the -ink verbs? I’m afraid it’s one of those memorize them or
look them up situations.

Some of them follow the regular verb pattern with tenses: blink, blinked, blinked for
present, past and past participle. Others in this group are ink, link and wink.

Two that blaze their own trails are slink (slunk, slunk) and think (thought, thought).

The other group is the trickiest: drink, shrink, sink and stink. They all follow the
pattern -ink, -ank, -unk:

“Occasionally I drink too much, but yesterday I drank too little. There have been times
when I have drunk just the right amount.”