Verb Problems - How to Find and Correct Mistakes - McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage

McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage, 2nd Edition (2013)

Part II. How to Find and Correct Mistakes

Chapter 9. Verb Problems

In this chapter, we will discuss three high-frequency verb problems: tense shifting between present and past; choosing the right tense for past-time events; and rise or raise? sit or set? lie or lay?

1. Tense shifting between present and past: The term tense shifting refers to a writer’s switching from present tense to past tense or from past tense to present tense in the same paragraph or even in the same sentence. Sometimes tense shifting is inappropriate; sometimes it is obligatory.

Here is an example of tense shifting when it is not appropriate (verbs in italics):

X Whenever I see an old Monty Python episode on television, I recorded it.

The writer has improperly shifted from present tense (see) to past tense (recorded).

Here is a reverse example, of not shifting when we should:

X Last summer we went to a resort that was near Santa Barbara.

The writer has improperly failed to shift from past tense (was) to present tense.

The problem of shifting is rooted in not understanding the different functions of the present and past tenses.

2. Choosing the right tense for past-time events: In this section, we focus on how to decide whether we should use the past tense, the present perfect tense, or the past perfect tense to describe a past-time event. Each of these three past-time tenses has its own distinct meaning. A skillful writer knows which one will best suit the intended meaning.

3. Rise or raise? sit or set? lie or lay? These three pairs of verbs are often confused. Part of the reason why it is so difficult to remember which member of each pair to use is that they are related to one another in a highly unusual way. By understanding how the verbs in each of the pairs are systematically related to one another, you will be better able to use them correctly.

Tense Shifting Between Present and Past

To shift or not to shift, that is the question. The term tense shifting refers to a writer’s switching from present tense to past tense or from past tense to present tense in the same paragraph or even in the same sentence. Here is an example of inappropriate tense shifting (verbs in italics):

X Whenever we went to my grandfather’s house, we always have to eat with the TV on.

The verb in the first clause (went) is in the past tense, while the verb in the second clause (have) is in the present tense. In this example, the writer could not decide whether she was telling a story about visiting her grandfather’s house (past tense) or making a statement of fact about what eating at her grandfather’s house is like (present tense). Either choice is perfectly fine, but it is not fine to switch horses in midstream. The writer should commit to one alternative and stick with it.

If the writer wanted to tell a story about a visit, then she should have stayed in the past tense throughout the narrative:

Story: Whenever we went to my grandfather’s house, we always had to eat with the TV on.

If the writer wanted to make a factual statement about visits to her grandfather’s house, then she should have stayed in the present tense throughout her statement:

Statement of fact: Whenever we go to my grandfather’s house, we always have to eat with the TV on.

The problem of shifting is rooted in not understanding the different functions of the present and past tenses. Following is a brief summary of their different functions. For more detailed information, look at the section on present and past tense use in Chapter 4.

Present Tense

The term present is misleading. The present tense is not tied to the present moment of time. The two main uses of the present tense are (1) to make statements of fact and (2) to make generalizations. Here are some examples of statements of fact and generalizations (present tense verb in italics):

Statement of fact

Chicago is in the Central Time Zone.

The planet Mercury has no atmosphere.

Generalizations

VW Beetles are the cutest car on the market.

San Francisco is a more interesting city than New York.

John works on Saturdays.

Notice the last example, John works on Saturdays. One kind of generalization is about people’s regular customs or habitual actions. The use of the present tense in this sentence tells us that it is John’s regular custom to work on Saturdays.

Both statements of fact and generalizations are essentially timeless. That is, they are not limited to a particular moment of time or even to a span of time. They are universally true (statements of fact) or an assertion of one’s opinion about what is true (generalizations). Nonfiction writing is typically written in the present tense. Notice, for example, that the present tense is used throughout this book—except for examples, which often depict specific, time-bounded events.

Past Tense

The past tense, obviously, is used to describe events that took place in past time. However, there is more to the use of the past time than this statement would imply. Because the present tense is preempted for making timeless statements of fact and generalizations, the past tense becomes the primary vehicle for all narration that deals with time-bounded events. For this reason, nearly all fiction—stories and novels—are written in the past tense.

There is one rather odd exception to the distinction between the use of the present tense for nonfiction and the use of the past tense for fiction. Sometimes stories and novels, even ones set in a past time, are written entirely in the present tense. When the present tense is used this way, it is called the historical present. For example, a novel written in the historical present about Queen Elizabeth I might read like this (verbs in italics):

Elizabeth enters the council chambers and sees Lord Leicester. She asks him what he thinks about the Spanish threat.

Most writing guides strongly advise beginning writers to stay away from the historical present. It is difficult to handle and it gets very tiresome, very quickly. Interestingly, about the only place we ever encounter the historical present is in jokes, for example (verbs in italics):

This guy goes into a bar and sits down. A few minutes later this polar bear comes in and sits down next to him and orders a drink. …

When Should We Shift Tenses?

What we have said to this point makes it sound like tense shifting is a bad thing. Certainly, shifting tenses unnecessarily is a bad thing. However, we need to shift tenses whenever we shift from narration to generalization or statement of fact—something we do quite often. Here is an example of legitimate and necessary tense shifting (verbs in italics):

Shakespeare wrote Hamlet around 1600. The action of the play is set in Elsinore Castle in Denmark, though there is no evidence that Shakespeare ever visited Denmark—or ever even left England, for that matter.

Notice that the tenses bounce back and forth from past (wrote) to present (is twice) and then back to past (visited and left). The first sentence

Shakespeare wrote Hamlet around 1600.

deals with an event that took place in past time, so the past tense wrote is perfectly appropriate. The next clause

The action of the play is set in Elsinore Castle in Denmark

shifts to the present tense. The present tense is appropriate here because the writer is now giving us a statement of fact about the play—a legitimate function of the present tense. If the writer had kept the clause in the past tense, it would have sounded quite odd:

? The action of the play was set in Elsinore Castle in Denmark

This use of the past tense implies that while Shakespeare had originally set the action of the play in Elsinore Castle, he later changed his mind and set it somewhere else.

The remaining part of the sentence

though there is no evidence that Shakespeare ever visited Denmark—or ever even left England, for that matter

begins in the present tense (is). The present tense is appropriate because the author is making a statement of fact (there is no evidence …). Then the author shifts to the past tense (visited and left) to tell us about events that took place in past time.

Probably the most common single situation in which writers fail to shift tenses when they should shift is when they embed a piece of factual information inside a past tense narrative. Here is a typical example (verbs in italics):

X We then visited Key West, which was the southernmost city in the continental United States.

The use of past tense (visited) for a narrative is normal and expected. However, in this case, the writer mistakenly stays in the past tense (was) while giving a statement of fact. The writer makes it sound as though Key West is no longer the southernmost city in the continental United States. Here, the writer should have shifted to the present tense:

We then visited Key West, which is the southernmost city in the continental United States.

Summary

The term tense shifting refers to shifting from present tense to past tense (or vice versa) in the same passage or sentence. Tense shifting can be either appropriate or inappropriate. The key to understanding tense shifting is understanding the different functions of the present and past tenses. The present tense (despite its name) is timeless. That is, we use it to make statements of fact or generalizations—neither of which is connected to the present moment of time. The past tense is for describing events—actions that are time-bounded. We use the past tense for all narrations. The basic rule is not to shift tenses unless there is a reason, but if there is a reason, then you must shift.

Choosing the Right Tense for Past-Time Events

In this section, we will focus on choosing the right tense for past-time events. Specifically, how do we decide when we should use the past tense, the present perfect tense, or the past perfect tense? We will first briefly recap how each of the three tenses is formed and then turn to a more detailed discussion of how the tenses are used.

Past Tense

The regular past tense is formed by adding -ed or -d to the end of the base form of the verb, for example, talk, talked; wave, waved. Many verbs have irregular past tense forms. The verbs with irregular past tenses are discussed in more detail than most people would want to know in Chapter 4.

The past tense is used to describe time-bounded events. The term time-bounded refers to a description of a single event that took place at one specific moment in space and time. The past tense is the normal tense for all narration. Virtually all stories and novels are written in the past tense.

Present Perfect Tense

The present perfect tense is formed by the present tense of the helping verb have followed by a second verb in the past participle form, which we can summarize as follows:

present perfect = have/has + past participle

We use the present perfect to describe actions that have occurred continuously or repeatedly from some time in the past right up to the present moment (sometimes with the implication that these actions will continue into the future). Here are some examples of continuous action (present perfect in italics):

Their phone has been busy for half an hour.
The kids have watched cartoons all afternoon.

Here are some examples of repeated action (present perfect in italics):

The choir has sung that hymn a hundred times.
It has rained off and on all summer long.

The fundamental difference between the present perfect and the past tense is that the present perfect emphasizes the continual or repeated nature of events across a span of time, while the past tense describes a single-event action that is now over and done with. To see the difference, compare the following sentences:

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The present perfect sentence tells us two things: (1) Elliot has lived in Chicago continuously for ten years and (2) Elliot still lives in Chicago now. The sentence also implies that Elliot will continue to live in Chicago for the foreseeable future. The past tense sentence tells us that while Elliot lived in Chicago for ten years, he does not live in Chicago anymore. His presence in Chicago is over and done with.

A second use of the present perfect describes a recent past event whose impact is felt over a period of time right up until the present moment. Here are some examples:

I’m sorry, Ms. Smith has stepped away from her desk for a moment.
Sam has lost his car keys.

In both cases, an event that was begun in the past still continues in effect and very much impacts the present moment. In these examples, the present perfect emphasizes the ongoing duration of the impact of the action.

Often the choice between the past tense and the present perfect is not always a matter of right or wrong but of what the writer wants to imply. For example, compare the following questions:

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The past tense question is ambiguous because it is not anchored to any specific past time. Without further specification of the time frame, the speaker could mean just now, yesterday, last week, or last year.

However, the present perfect question can only refer to the recent past. Accordingly, we cannot use the present perfect to describe an event that took place at a time even slightly removed from the present. For example, notice how strange the following present perfect sentence sounds:

X Sam has lost his car keys yesterday.

Past Perfect Tense

The past perfect tense is formed by the past tense of the helping verb have followed by a verb in the past participle form:

past perfect = had + past participle

Here are two examples of sentences with past perfect tenses:

Their phone had been busy for half an hour before I got through.
The choir had already sung that hymn at the beginning of the service.

We use the past perfect when we want to emphasize the fact that a particular event in the past was completed before a more recent past-time event took place. Here are three examples with commentary (past perfect in italics):

I had stepped into the shower just when the phone rang.

In this example, two things happened: (1) the speaker stepped into the shower and (2) the phone rang. The speaker is using the past perfect to emphasize the inconvenient order of the two past-time events.

When we bought the house last year, it had been empty for ten years.

In this example, the past perfect is used to emphasize the fact that the house had been empty for the ten-year period before it was bought.

They’d had a big fight before they broke up.

In this example, the past perfect sequences two events: (1) a big fight and (2) a breakup. Here the past perfect implies that not only did these two events happen in this order, but there is probably a cause-and-effect connection between them. That is, their big fight may have caused their subsequent breakup.

The past perfect tends to be underused in writing, possibly because it is not used much in casual conversation. The past perfect requires more advanced planning than most of us can muster in the rapid give-and-take of animated conversation. One of the cardinal differences between the spoken language and the written language is that while writing necessarily sacrifices the spontaneity of spoken language, writing gives us the opportunity to revise and edit, so that we can say exactly what we mean. For example, the following sentence is what we might say in conversation:

After I was in the classroom for a week, all my theories of education went out the window.

Both clauses are in the past tense.

The corresponding sentence in more formal, more precise written form would be like this:

After I had been in the classroom for a week, all my theories of education went out the window.

The use of the past perfect in the first clause tells the reader that the two clauses refer to different time periods. First, the writer went into the classroom, and then (presumably as a result of this experience) the writer’s theories went out the window. In the written form, the writer is able to exploit the built-in time relationship of the past perfect to get across the meaning in a more effective manner.

Summary

The three main tenses that we use for talking about past-time events are the past tense, the present perfect tense, or the past perfect tense. Each of these three tenses has its own distinctive meaning.

The past tense is used primarily for single, unique events that are now over and done with. The past tense is used in nearly all narrations—stories and other works of fiction.

The present perfect tense is used for events that span a period of time or are repeated over time.

The past perfect tense is used for a somewhat special purpose—to emphasize that one past event occurred before a second, more recent event. Sometimes the past perfect tense is used to imply a cause-and-effect relation between the two events (i.e., the first event caused or affected the second event).

Rise or Raise? Sit or Set? Lie or Lay?

These three pairs of verbs—rise or raise, sit or set, and lie or lay—are often confused. Part of the reason why it is so difficult to remember which member of the pair to use is that they are related to one another in a highly unusual and confusing way. Before discussing each of the three pairs in detail, we will turn to a fourth pair of verbs that are related in exactly the same way—but that are much easier to work with.

Fall/Fell and Causative Verbs

The verb fall is an intransitive verb meaning, well, “to fall,” for example:

Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall.

The verb fell is a transitive verb that means “to cut or bring something down.” The most common use of fell is in reference to cutting down a tree, for example:

The loggers felled all the trees on the ridge.

The word fell can also be used to refer to bringing down an animal, for example:

The hunter felled the charging rhino with a single shot.

(There are two other, totally unrelated uses of the word fell: (1) a noun derived from a Latin word that means the skin of an animal, related to the word pelt, and (2) an adjective derived from another Latin word that means “cruel” or “terrible,” related to the noun felon.)

It would seem obvious that the verbs fall and fell are somehow related. They are, but they are related in a special and unusual way that, to be understood, requires an excursion into the history of the English language.

In an early stage of English, there was a special ending that could be attached to nearly any verb. The ending is what linguists today would call a causative. When this suffix was added to a verb, it had the meaning of to “cause the action of the verb.” For example, if we added this ending to the verb sneeze, we would create a new verb with the meaning of to “cause someone to sneeze.” If we added the ending to the verb sleep, we would create a new verb meaning to “cause someone to sleep.” If we added the ending to the verb fall, we would create a new verb meaning to “cause something to fall.” As you can probably guess, the verb fell is the causative form of the verb fall. To fell a tree is to cause it to fall.

The example of fall/fell also illustrates a second characteristic of this causative suffix: when the suffix was attached to an intransitive verb (a verb that has no object), it changed the verb from intransitive to transitive. That is, the resulting new causative verb required an object. This shift from intransitive to transitive survives into Modern English. For example, the causative verb fell requires an overt statement of what it was that is being cut or brought down. When we fell, we have to fell something.

Finally, fall/fell illustrates the third characteristic of this causative suffix: it caused a change in the vowel of the verb it was attached to. As a consequence, the intransitive verb without the causative suffix has one vowel, and the transitive verb with the causative suffix has another vowel. (The rules governing the vowel change were extraordinarily complicated. The same rules also caused many of the irregular plurals in Modern English, for example, man, men; goose, geese; and mouse, mice.)

The verb fall, the original intransitive verb, is irregular:

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The transitive causative verb fell is regular:

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We will now turn to the other three pairs of verbs that follow the same pattern as fall and fell.

Rise/Raise

The intransitive verb rise means to “go up” or “get into an upright position,” for example:

The courtroom bailiff says, “All rise!”

If you get the yeast right, the dough will always rise.

The sun rises in the east.

Historically, the transitive causative verb raise meant to “cause something to rise.” Its meaning has broadened over time to also mean, among other things, to “lift,” to “rear” (as children or animals), or to “grow” (as plants).

Raise your glasses and join me in a toast to the bride and groom!

I had to raise three children on my own.

We raise winter wheat for export.

The verbs rise and raise follow the same basic pattern as fall and fell in that the original intransitive verb is irregular while the transitive causative verb is regular (though with a different vowel from the original intransitive verb):

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Sit/Set

The intransitive verb sit means to “be seated” or to “be situated,” for example:

Please sit down.

The house sits on a hill overlooking the river.

Historically, the causative transitive verb set meant to “cause something or someone to sit.” Its meanings have also broadened over time to mean, among other things, to “place,” “arrange,” or “fix,” for example:

He set the briefcase on the table.

We will set the table as soon as we can.

They need to set the date for the meeting.

Adding to the confusion of sit and set is the fact that the verb set can also be used as an intransitive verb, for example:

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

The verb sit, the original intransitive verb, is irregular:

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The transitive causative verb set is one of those odd monosyllabic verbs ending in a -t or -d (like hit and rid) that uses the same form for the present, the past, and the past participle:

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Lie/Lay

This pair of verbs is the most difficult of the gang of four. One reason is that the present tense of the transitive causative verb (lay) happens (by historical accident) to be identical with the past tense of the original intransitive verb (lay).

The original intransitive verb lie meant to “recline.” The meaning has broadened over time to mean “spread out” or “be placed,” for example:

I will lie down for a few minutes before dinner.

The x-ray technician had me lie on my right side.

The residential area of town lies along the west bank of the river.

Historically, the transitive causative verb lay meant to “cause to lie,” that is, to “place,” for example:

Please lay your briefcase and papers on the table.

I needed to lay my packages down.

The movers will lay the rugs in the living room this afternoon.

The verb lie, the original intransitive verb, is irregular:

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The transitive causative verb lay is actually regular, though the spelling somewhat disguises it—the final y in lay changes to i when followed by a consonant:

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Notice that the form lay is confusing: lay is both the base and present tense form of lay and the past tense of lie.

In casual conversation, there seems to be a tendency to use lay as an intransitive verb. If you had heard the following sentences in conversation, would you have noticed they were actually incorrect?

X Don’t just lay there—do something!

X She got sunburned from laying around the pool too long.

X The kids have laid around the house all day.

Technically, all three of these sentences should have used some form of lie:

Don’t just lie there—do something!

She got sunburned from lying around the pool too long.

The kids have lain around the house all day.

The fact that our ear has grown somewhat accustomed to using lay as an intransitive verb means that we have to be especially careful to monitor our use of lay in writing. Remember, if it doesn’t have an object, lay is inappropriate in formal writing. If you have trouble with lie and lay, it might be worthwhile to memorize the following:

You lie around, but you lay something down.

Summary

The verbs rise and raise, sit and set, and lie and lay are often confused with each other. These pairs of verbs are modern survivors of a causative ending that changed intransitive verbs to transitive verbs. The new transitive verb meant to engage in the action of the intransitive verb. For example, the transitive verb fell comes from the intransitive verb fall. To fell a tree means to cause the tree to fall.

All three pairs of verbs are related in exactly the same way:

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The key to keeping the verbs straight is to remember that the causative verb requires an object. When you raise, you have to raise something. When you set, you have to set something. When you lay, you have to lay (down) something.