We’re about to have a quick little English language session. Bet you never thought you’d get something like that here, right? Ready for some knowledge? Ready to get your learn on for the day?

Here it comes.

I had an email come through my inbox this morning where the writer used the word “troubleshoot” in the past tense. They wrote something along the lines of, “we troubleshooted the issue.”

That both looked and sounded super wrong to me. Like, if the past tense of shoot is shot, then shouldn’t the past tense of a compound word ending in shoot end in shot as well? Troubleshot? That’s what I would have written, but is that correct? Off to The Google!

I searched for What is the Past Tense of Troubleshoot and it returned a bunch of hits. Most of the summaries said that both options were correct. Troubleshot is correct (thank you, I love being right), but troubleshooted is also correct (booooooo!!!).

There was one post from Quora that gave the best option. Shouldn’t the past tense of troubleshoot be…. wait for it…. Fixed?