I know, I know…some people might refuse to read another word of a post titled in such a fashion. I understand how difficult it can be to accept that some aspects of a dialect are a natural part of a constantly evolving language like English—take, for example, the use of chopped words like Who’d a in place of Who would’ve in the title of this post.

But as far as the last line of defense for proper English, it comes down to usage, right? I mean, obviously thunk is about as ridiculous a past participle for think as anybody could come up with & demonstrates a clear lack of education or awareness of it being a form of onomatopoeia for something hitting onto something else. As in:

Certainly not as used in the Jefferson Airplane song from 1971 “Thunk.”

Well, I thunk and thunk
Couldn’t think of anything better…

Problem is…thunk actually is an acceptable enough dialectical past tense & past participle for the verb form of think that it appears in online dictionaries like Collins & Merriam-Webster (as in 1 of 3 in the same entry as above):

Who cares if it probably came from a joke in the late 1800s to rhyme with drunk & sunk & whatnot? I’m no linguist, but I do know stranger words & phrases have entered the language from offhand remarks, observations, intentional derivations, misunderstandings, & verbing—yeah, check out that usage:

At this point, you’d be justified wondering what the hell this thunk ramble has to do with my writing journey—the focus of most of my previous posts.

Well, it all boils down to working on the first draft of a preface to my next novel. See, this morning I was hanging out in my study that many writers would find impossible to be productive in since distraction is the norm, except for predawn hours when I rattle around unimpeded.

That’s how I got the idea to have the narrator of my new novel go down a side road at a moment’s notice & constantly struggle to string two thoughts together without writing detailed notes.

(No…the narrator has nothing to do with me, not a single thing.)

Anyhow, as soon as I wrap up this post for today, I’m planning on kicking back in my wonderful writing corner of the world & polishing my narrator’s backstory a bit more in a second draft.

Hmm, maybe I’ll give his voice a touch of the scarecrow from the The Wizard of Oz.

Oh, I could tell you why
The ocean’s near the shore
I could think of things I’d never
Thunk before,
And then I’d sit and think some more.

Keep you posted.

Drew

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