Friday, January 2, 2009

I don't know how I feel about this

Last night I was watching one of those true-crime shows on Investigation: Discovery, and an investigator who was being interviewed got my attention by saying, "...the victim succame to his wounds."

Yes, succame: that would be the past tense of succumb. I'm equal parts delighted and horrified.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is? M-W Online doesn't have "succame." I always thought it was "succumbed."

Mollie said...

Exactly. This guy apparently believes the word is a form of "come"? I kind of hope nobody ever tells him he's wrong.

Anonymous said...

Wow! That's like fingernails on a blackboard!

Anonymous said...

The descriptive linguist says: it's A-OK, as long as everyone knew what he meant (which we did)! The prescriptive grammarian is a blinking in confusion. :-)