Many, too many, are the times I’ve recently heard the word: TOOKEN  * ! * Spoken in a casual tone of voice and used in a sentence as if it is used  correctly!

No. No. No. Tooken is not correct! There is not a place for its use in that spelling. Especially concerning is the question that asks, “Why not just use taken?”

Visually, artistic expressive folks like ‘tooken’ for its double O’s. Some people have explained that the ‘e’ should be eliminated and an apostrophe placed where the ‘e’ would have been.

Not Ok. Hearing the word tooken makes my ear lobes twitch. Typing and then seeing the word tooken makes my writing program  sprinkle little red horizontal lines about my page as if they are shivering in the writerly land of  horror or horrors.

Perhaps the joke is on me. Perhaps I’ll have people telling me I’ve tooken the word right out of their mouths.