Wearing sequined ball gowns may be second nature, but onjugating verbs doesn’t come easily to Carrie Ann Inaba, a judge on Dancing with the Stars.

Last week she couldn’t come up with the past tense of the verb shine.

“For some reason,” Inaba told Lance Bass, “you haven’t really shone…shone-”

“Shined,” offered up Lacey Schwimmer, Bass’ professional partner.

“Shineded?” Inaba continued.

Then she opted for an even stranger hybrid, shawn. “You haven’t been shawning,” Inaba said.

She shouldn’t have let herself get so carried away. Her instinct, shone, was correct.

When you’re dealing with shine as an intransitive verb — that is, a verb that doesn’t have a direct object — shone is the past tense. Cody Linley shone on the ballroom last night. The sun shone brightly all day.

When you’re treating shine as a transitive verb, one that has a direct object, then the past tense is shined. Linley shined his shoes before hitting the dance floor.

Inaba’s linguistic stumbles prompted fellow judge Bruno Tonioli to quip, “Paula Abdul is with us tonight.”

“UCK!” Inaba exclaimed. “You did not call me Paula Abdul,” she said, wagging her finger at Tonioli. “I love Paula, but I’m a little different than Paula.”

Memo to Inaba: If you want to differentiate yourself from the tongue-tied Idol judge, choose your words wisely. Different takes the preposition from, not than – just as one judge differs from another.

But with such sloppy speech, the two women sound awfully similar.