Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: shine.

shine. As a transitive verb, it’s inflected “shine / shined / shined” {he shined his shoes}. As an intransitive verb, it’s inflected “shine / shone / shone” {the sun shone}. Writers occasionally use “shined” where “shone” is the word they want — e.g.: “And neither shined [read ‘shone’] like the oft-dormant Texas running game that has produced only two 1,000-yard rushers since Earl Campbell and none since Eric Metcalf in 1987.” Kirk Bohls, “Texas Starts from the Ground Up,” Austin Am.-Statesman, 19 Aug. 1993, at E1. Still others confuse “shone” with “shown” — e.g.: o “As March turns into April, there are houses here where it has been weeks since the sun has shown [read ‘shone’] through the windows, so high are the snowbanks.” Lorna Colquhoun, “Winter Just Won’t Quit,” Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.), 31 Mar. 1997, at A1. o “I feel such a deep gratitude for the light shown [read ‘shone’] forth in you, this church.” Stephen Goyer, “Tragedy, Prayer and the Power of God,” Charlotte Observer, 13 Aug. 2001, at A11. Rarely, a writer will slip the other way and spell “shown” as “shone” — e.g.: “Former No. 1 Pick Shone [read ‘Shown’] to Sonic Door.” Headline, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1 Nov. 1996, at E6. Language-Change Index — (1) “shined” misused for “shone”: Stage 2; (2) “shown” misused for “shone”: Stage 1. ——————– Quotation of the Day: “The ability to express ourselves is not a frill for the edges of life, but an indispensable tool of our self-understanding, our understanding of others, and our rational contact with the world around us.” Royal Bank of Canada, The Communication of Ideas 37 (rev. ed. 1972).
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