The ship SANK near the rocks.
The ship SUNK near the rocks.
Answer please, which is correct. I suspect both.
British (correct) English: sank
American (funny) English: sank or sunk
I would have thought “sank”, as it’s past tense. “Sunk” would have to be used with “has”, since it is the past participle. However, I won’t be surprised if someone knows a reason why it CAN also be used alone.
Only SANK is correct, SUNK is the Past Participle, you’d need some kind of auxilary verb if you were going to use it.
The ship has sunk…
The ship had sunk…
Same conjugational relationship as DRINK.
[quote=“the chief”]Only SANK is correct, SUNK is the Past Participle, you’d need some kind of auxilary verb if you were going to use it.
The ship has sunk…
The ship had sunk…
Same conjugational relationship as DRINK.[/quote]
jinx!
[quote=“the chief”]Only SANK is correct, SUNK is the Past Participle, you’d need some kind of auxilary verb if you were going to use it.
The ship has sunk…
The ship had sunk…
Same conjugational relationship as DRINK.[/quote]
Not according to Webster’s:
[quote]Main Entry: sink
Pronunciation: 'si[ng]k
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): sank /'sa[ng]k/; or sunk /'s&[ng]k/; sunk; sink
“The ship sunk near the rocks” implies a vessel on the bottom into which someone or something bashed a hole, sending it into the briny depths, while “the ship sank near the rocks” implies merely that it went to Davy Jones’ locker.
Sank you, sank you.
Sunk is better because it rhymes with dunk and plunk.
[quote=“Stray Dog”]British (correct) English: sank
American (funny) English: sank or sunk[/quote]
or whatever…
[quote=“Stray Dog”]British (correct) English: sank
American (funny) English: sank or sunk[/quote]
“sunk” is wrong in American English, too. It’s a past participle.
However, you could conceivably use it in the noun phrase “the ship (that was) sunk near the rocks”.
“In tomorrow’s dive we’ll explore the ship sunk near the rocks.”
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“Stray Dog”]British (correct) English: sank
American (funny) English: sank or sunk[/quote]
“sunk” is wrong in American English, too. It’s a past participle.
However, you could conceivably use it in the noun phrase “the ship (that was) sunk near the rocks”.
“In tomorrow’s dive we’ll explore the ship sunk near the rocks.”[/quote]
I refer my learned friend to the response I gave earlier; according to Webster’s (American) English dictionary, sunk is used as the past participle but is also acceptable used as the simple past.
[quote=“Stray Dog”]
I refer my learned friend to the response I gave earlier; according to Webster’s (American) English dictionary, sunk is used as the past participle but is also acceptable used as the simple past.[/quote]
Perhaps it’s descriptive grammar rather than prescriptive?
Maybe “The boat sunk yesterday” is acceptable American English in the trailer parks, but not in the halls of higher learning… 
Hey, I’m on your side - queen’s English and all that.
But in my job as editor, I have to accept what the Chicago Manual of Style or Merriam Webster’s say about American English.
[quote=“Stray Dog”]Hey, I’m on your side - queen’s English and all that.
But in my job as editor, I have to accept what the Chicago Manual of Style or Merriam Webster’s say about American English.[/quote]
Do you have to? Well, Seeker4 and I are both well-educated Americans, and we both feel that only “sank” is an acceptable past tense form, regardless of what the dictionaries say. “The ship sunk” sounds downright ignorant to me. As an editor, I don’t rely on dictionaries or style guides alone. The former often document usage which may be out of date, inappropriately informal, or descriptive. If a handful of educated people, including Americans, feel ‘sunk’ is wrong, then your leaving that in place will reflect badly upon the person whose writing you are editing.
You, Seeker4 and I agree that it’s sink-sank-sunk, and that’s enough for me, as an editor. In the end, an editor must rely on his best judgment, after all. 
We rely on the first entry in Webster’s, after Chicago as a matter of consistency, so we’d go with sank, but Webster’s is credited as being the authority on American English usage, so if someone were to write ‘The ship sunk’, as the OP did, I couldn’t say it was wrong, but would suggest changing it to sank. If it were for one of our publications, it would be changed.
It’s not our job to determine usage based on our own experience; that can go horribly wrong when the editor is certain that his or her own educated opinion should override Webster’s. We allow the experts to be the authority.