Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: sing / sang / sung.

sing / sang / sung. So inflected. The past-participial "sung" is often misused as a simple-past verb — e.g.: o "She sung [read ‘sang’] the title track." Timothy Finn, "Williams Rocks, Sways Through Raw, Earnest Concert," Kansas City Star, 13 Dec. 1998, at B8. o "But the poet’s more than 1,500 songs, including many soulful lyrics that he sung [read ‘sang’] for films, also stirred the hearts of his poorer country members." "Pradeep, Hindi Poet, Songwriter," L.A. Times, 14 Dec. 1998, at A27. o "Her co-star as she sung [read ‘sang’] her latest hit was a huge white python slung over her bare shoulders." Kirk Montgomery & Mark Harden, "Aiming for Triple Crown", Denver Post, 9 Nov. 2001, Weekend §, at 1 (referring to Britney Spears). Language-Change Index — "sung" misused for simple-past "sang": Stage 1. ——————– Quotation of the Day: "According to Aristotle, a definition does two things. It places the thing defined in a class and then tells how it is to be distinguished from other members of its class." Anatol Rapoport, "What Is Semantics?" (1952), in Weigh the Word 119, 125 (Charles B. Jennings et al. eds., 1957).
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