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Also “smitten” is the passive past participle of “smite”, not “smote”, which is the active. This bothered me through the whole article.

I suppose the author is not a native English speaker. Like the person who titled a film “honey I shrunk the kids”. Makes me wince to even type it.




I'm a native English speaker, and I see nothing wrong with "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids". It's a movie title, for Pete's sake.

I assume you are saying it should have been "Honey, I Shrank the Kids". Please correct me if I misunderstood you.

Yes, I know the technically correct usage of "shrank" and "shrunk". But let's take off our grammarian hats for a moment and say each one out loud a few times.

"Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" rolls off the tongue, while "Honey, I Shrank the Kids" just seems... odd to me. You may disagree.

If you actually shrank your kids, and you were in a panic and rushed to tell your honey about it, would you be concerned about correct grammar, or just getting the message across?

One might even argue that the incorrect use of "shrunk" helps convey this sense of panic.

Movie titles are not required to follow "correct" English grammar, any more than newspaper headlines. They should be memorable and fun to say when you tell your friends about a movie you enjoyed.

p.s. I've never been sure who Pete is, but I hear he has a very fine bottle of sake. If we ask him real nice, maybe he will let us try a sip!


You’d tell Pete that you drank the beer, not that you’d drunk it. Shrink, shrank, shrunk is the same as drink, drank, drunk.

The film case likely altered your perception.


I propose that they are quite familiar with English and want to avoid the love-related connotations of "smitten".


It might be there to put a playful twist on things. Kind of like "shook" (slang) or "woke" (when it first appeared).


And I woke from a terrible dream

So I caught up my pal Jack Daniel's

And his partner Jimmy Beam

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/woke-meaning...

AC/DC - You Shook Me All Night Long (Official Video)

https://youtu.be/Lo2qQmj0_h4

(Rock n' roll stole the best vernacular.)


Those are both correct (“conventional” to descriptivists like me) uses of the respective terms.


Ah, "not a native English speaker", usual written as "American".

</troll>




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