I've been quite surprised to hear this a number of times of late. I've even heard Clinton Kelly, of TLC's "What Not to Wear", who is normally articulate, misuse "sunk".
I'm talking about the verbs "sink", "stink", "drink", even "sing", and others.
I'm sure you learned somewhere along the way the very simple, "sink, sank, sunk". This illustrates the verb usage for different tenses:
"Today, the boat sinks."
"Yesterday, the boat sank."
"By now, the boat has sunk."
It's the same with any of those verbs.
"I drink coffee to stay awake."
"I drank too much coffee and now I can't go to sleep."
"Last night, I couldn't sleep, because I had drunk too much coffee."
It's pretty simple, right? To help you remember, here are the WRONG WRONG WRONG examples:
WRONG "When that sunk in, she changed her mind." WRONG
WRONG "He drunk a whole bottle of tequila." WRONG
WRONG "I told my boyfriend that his apartment stunk." WRONG
Remember, those are the WRONG ones! Use the right ones and I won't have to come after you with a pitchfork. Who'd have thunk it?
Any questions, you know where to find me.
Happy Grammaring!
Susan K. Morrow
www.SusanKMorrow.com
