Back on the original topic. Thinking about my own usage, I seem to only be using “pung” in the construction “pung out,” but only when referring to myself: i.e. I always say “he pinged out a while ago,” but sometimes I say “I pung out a while ago,” rather than “I pinged out a while ago.” I suppose it’s an odd quirk—it does sound interesting though. A Google Search for pinged pung reveals that others have been at least struggling with this, so it’s not just me being odd (whew!)If you have a link to that Skeptical Enquirer, Myk, I’d love to see it.

Specifically, irregular conjugations activate memory areas of the brain, while regular conjugations activate analytical (rule-processing) areas. His theory is that irregular conjugations are harder to use and thus rarer (and restricted to commonly used words), but they’re also more evocative (because memory-related) and thus preferable to boring regular conjugations.

In any case, conjugations and other grammar change over time (sometimes swinging back and forth), so I wouldn’t get hanged ;-) up on supposed “rules.” Today’s heretical linguistic innovations will be defended as “correct” by tomorrow’s language cops, just as yesterday’s innovations are defended by today’s cops.

(FWIW, I occasionally have used “pang” and “pung”, but I generally prefer “pinged” these days.)

bring: brought, in all cases.

ding: dinged, in all cases. (Definitely not dung.)

sting: stung, in all cases.

wing: winged, in all cases.

zing: zinged, in all cases.

fling: flung, in all cases.

wring: wringed (pt); wrung (pp)

ring: ringed (pt); rung (pp)

So the inged/ung division only happens when the preceding letter is ‘r’. In all other cases, it’s either all-inged or all-ung. I’m inclined to go with “pinged” myself.