Recently, many people have been using the phrase ‘I’m shook’ to mean that they are startled, mostly due to some sudden realization.
This made me wonder whether this expression is grammatically correct. I could not find much relevant information about ‘shook’ being used in this way despite searching on Google.
I do know that ‘shook’ is the past tense of ‘shake’.
Also, are both ‘I’m shook’ and ‘I’m shaken’ grammatically correct? What are their differences?
Edit: I’m starting to think that both of those are incorrect because ‘I am’ is in present tense but neither ‘shook’ or ‘shaken’ are in present tense. Is the only grammatically correct way in this case ‘I’m shaking’?
Best Answer
This issue is complicated by the fact that there are multiple definitions for the word "shake":
Let's first clarify that the colloquial "I'm shook" is using the third definition. Now, let's look at "shook" vs. "shaken":
In the second example, "shaken" is used as an adjective, as past participle forms of verbs sometimes can be: "My eyes are swollen." In both "swell" and "shake", the past tense ("swelled" and "shook") cannot be used as adjectives ("my swelled eyes" and "I'm shook"), whereas the past participle forms can ("my eyes are swollen" and "I'm shaken").
The reasoning for this distinction (past tense vs. past participle) is that past tense has a fixed time point, whereas past participle does not. As a result, the past participle form describes actions that could have happened at any time, and so can also be used as an adjective -- as things that are red could have become red at any time, things that are swollen could have become swollen at any time.
Source: https://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/simple-past-or-past-participle