“What is wrong with you?” the unsigned letter demanded of columnist Judy Jenkins.

The anonymous grammarian had photocopied a portion of the front page of the March 14 Gleaner and, with a teal blue highlighter, circled the word “snuck” that appeared in a headline and wrote beneath it in all caps: “THIS IS NOT A WORD!”

“I’m sure you know the difference and the proofreader missed it — I hope,” the correspondent wrote in an elegant hand. “The word should be sneaked. There is no word snuck.

“Just because almost everyone uses the incorrect version of this verb doesn’t mean that some of us didn’t pay attention to grammar when we were in school,” the letter went on. “Please don’t perpetuate incorrect grammar — our society/schools are pathetic enough.”

Judy wasn’t particularly moved by the indictment. After all, it wasn’t her who used the word snuck. Headlines generally are written by the copy editor who lays out the page. Although reporters might offer suggestions, headlines cannot be completed until the page is laid out; only then is it known how much space is available for the headline, which dictates how many words — proper or improper — can be used.

While Judy offered no immediate response, I have elected to comment.

“What is wrong with you?” is a cry that should be reserved for appropriate situations, such as when Michael Jackson dangles his infant over the railing of a fourth-floor hotel balcony.

While I wince at the misspellings and grammatical faux pas (some of them my own) that decorate The Gleaner, few have warranted an arm-waving wail of “What is wrong with you?”

Especially not the use of snuck.

For starters, snuck is, indeed, a word, appearing on page 1224 of my battered American Heritage Dictionary, a recognized authority on word usage.

To be sure, American Heritage characterizes snuck as “nonstandard” (in the 1976 edition) or as a word with a “usage problem” (in the 1993 edition). But it is a word all the same.

“Snuck is an Americanism first introduced in the 19th century as a nonstandard regional variant of sneaked,” the 1993 edition explains in a usage note. “Many writers and editors have a lingering unease about the form, even though it is widely used, particularly if they recall its nonstandard origins.”

Ohhhh. Even though snuck is in its second century of use, and is in wide use at that, some word people stick up their noses because they have learned that it originated as an American regionalism — and I dare say that the region wasn’t Boston. More likely it came from the frontier — perhaps from the rural Missouri that Mark Twain knew as a boy. Or, Providence forbid, from the South.

American Heritage is so serious about usage that it years ago organized a panel of authorities. In 1993, the panel was chaired by Geoffrey Nunberg, Ph.D., chairman of the linguistics department at Stanford University. The list of panelists stretches over three and a half pages and has included academics, famous smart people (Sen. Bill Bradley, astronomer Carl Sagan, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.) as well as noted authors and writers, including Issac Asimov, Roy Blount Jr., William F. Buckley Jr., Pat Conroy, Erica Jong, Garrison Keillor, James Michener and Eudora Welty.

American Heritage reports that a 1988 survey of its usage panel revealed that 67 percent disapproved of snuck. Which indicates that one out of three experts aren’t alarmed by it. The word police are divided, two to one, on the subject. Why, in the rarefied chambers where usage experts meet, that’s practically a raging controversy. I imagine that when the topic comes up, harsh words are exchanged, thesauruses are thrown — and ultimately, aging linguists are rolling around on the floor, gouging one another’s eyes.

But here’s the thing: Snuck is simply the better word. I don’t mean by a margin of two to one. I’m talking about a word that is 10 times better, 100 times better.

Snuck speaks to the intent and the character of one who sneaks. Ask a cat burglar how he entered the room; he wouldn’t answer, effetely, “Why, I sneaked in!” No, the scoundrel would look you squarely in the eye and tell you, flatly: “I snuck in.” It’s onomatopoeia — snuck sounds like the action it refers to.

The beauty of language is that it is organic, growing and evolving. My dictionary contains definitions of more than 200,000 words, and it’s not one of the real thick ones. Neanderthal Man didn’t pop out of his cave with a vocabulary like that; our language has taken time to develop. Snuck is one of the better refinements.

And there ain’t nothing wrong about that.