{"id":1961,"date":"2015-07-07T16:05:48","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T22:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=1961"},"modified":"2020-11-25T10:58:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T16:58:35","slug":"irregular-verbs-can-be-a-regular-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/definitions\/irregular-verbs-can-be-a-regular-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"Irregular Verbs Can Be a Regular Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"

English verbs are either regular <\/strong>or irregular<\/strong>. We call a verb regular when we add ed<\/em> (want<\/em>ed<\/strong><\/em>, look<\/em>ed<\/strong><\/em>) or sometimes just d<\/em> (created<\/strong><\/em>, love<\/em>d<\/strong><\/em>) to form what are called the simple past<\/strong> tense<\/strong> and the past participle<\/strong> (see third and fourth paragraphs below). A regular verb\u2019s simple past tense and past participle are always identical.<\/p>\n

Not so with irregular verbs. They form the simple past tense and the past participle in any number of unpredictable ways. Some irregular verbs, like let<\/em>, shut<\/em>, and spread<\/em>, never change, whether present or past. Others, like feel<\/em> and teach<\/em>, become modified versions of themselves (felt<\/em>, taught<\/em>) to form both the past tense and the past participle. Still others, like break <\/em> and sing<\/em>, change to form the past tense (broke<\/em>, sang<\/em>) and change again to form the past participle (broken<\/em>, sung<\/em>). And then there are a few really weird ones, like go<\/em>: its past participle (gone<\/em>) is recognizable enough, but its simple past tense is a strange new word (went<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get back to the irregular verb break<\/em>. The simple past tense is broke<\/em>, which we use in sentences like I broke your dish<\/em>. We use the past participle, broken<\/em>, to form compound verbs<\/strong> in sentences like I have broken<\/strong> your dish<\/em>. The compound verb have broken<\/em> is so called because we\u2019ve added a helping verb<\/strong> (have<\/em>) to the main verb\u2019s past participle (broken<\/em>). Be careful never to add a helping verb to the simple past form of an irregular verb\u2014I have broke your dish<\/em> is an embarrassing confession in more ways than one.<\/p>\n

The past participle of an irregular verb can also function as an adjective: a broken<\/strong> dish<\/em>. But the simple past form, if it differs from the participle, cannot function as an adjective: a broke<\/strong> dish<\/em> is substandard English.<\/p>\n

There are far fewer irregular verbs than regular ones, but we use them all the time. \u201cThe ten commonest verbs in English (be<\/em>, have<\/em>, do<\/em>, say<\/em>, make<\/em>, go<\/em>, take<\/em>, come<\/em>, see<\/em>, and get<\/em>) are all irregular,\u201d notes Steven Pinker, an American experimental psychologist and linguist, \u201cand about 70% of the time we use a verb, it is an irregular verb.\u201d Pinker acknowledges 180 irregular English verbs, but the website Englishpage.com has an Extended Irregular Verb Dictionary which contains over 470 irregular verbs, including rare ones such as bestrew, enwind,<\/em> and hagride<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Proper use of irregular verbs requires old-fashioned memorization\u2014there are no secret formulas or shortcuts. This is why these words can create havoc for conscientious speakers of English. See how you do on the irregular verb quiz below\u2014and please, no peeking at the answers till you complete the last question.<\/p>\n

Irregular Verb Pop Quiz<\/strong><\/p>\n

1<\/strong>. He should have definitely ___ it before sunset.<\/p>\n

A) did
\nB) done
\nC) have did
\nD) have done<\/p>\n

2<\/strong>. This year has not necessarily ___ the way they hoped it would.<\/p>\n

A) gone
\nB) went
\nC) going
\nD) go<\/p>\n

3<\/strong>. He hopes he has finally ___ his last grammar test.<\/p>\n

A) took
\nB) tooken
\nC) take
\nD) taken<\/p>\n

4<\/strong>. The dry soil has ___ up every last raindrop.<\/p>\n

A) drank
\nB) drunk
\nC) A and B are both correct.<\/p>\n

5<\/strong>. She claims she ___ it happen before it occurred.<\/p>\n

A) sees
\nB) seen
\nC) saw
\nD) had saw<\/p>\n

6<\/strong>. It looks as if Tanya has actually ___ to visit Reggie.<\/p>\n

A) come
\nB) came
\nC) coming<\/p>\n

7<\/strong>. The Smiths were all ___ by a loud crashing noise.<\/p>\n

A) awakened
\nB) awoken
\nC) A and B are both correct.<\/p>\n

8<\/strong>. It had just ___ to snow when the plane took off.<\/p>\n

A) began
\nB) begin
\nC) beginning
\nD) begun<\/p>\n

9<\/strong>. Don\u2019t they know I\u2019m already ___ up?<\/p>\n

A) shook
\nB) shaken
\nC) shooken
\nD) shaked<\/p>\n

10<\/strong>. The wind has ___ like this for a week now.<\/p>\n

A) blow
\nB) blowed
\nC) blown
\nD) blew<\/p>\n

ANSWERS<\/strong><\/p>\n

1<\/strong>: B) done<\/em><\/p>\n

2<\/strong>: A) gone<\/em><\/p>\n

3<\/strong>: D) taken<\/em><\/p>\n

4<\/strong>: B) drunk<\/em><\/p>\n

5<\/strong>: C) saw<\/em><\/p>\n

6<\/strong>: A) come<\/em><\/p>\n

7<\/strong>: C) awakened<\/em> and awoken<\/em> are both correct<\/p>\n

8<\/strong>: D) begun<\/em><\/p>\n

9<\/strong>: B) shaken<\/em><\/p>\n

10<\/strong>: C) blown<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

English verbs are either regular or irregular. We call a verb regular when we add ed (wanted, looked) or sometimes just d (created, loved) to form what are called the simple past tense and the past participle (see third and fourth paragraphs below). A regular verb\u2019s simple past tense and past participle are always identical. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,10,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adjectives-adverbs","category-definitions","category-verbs"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}