The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules (14 page)

C
HAPTER 10

The Past Tense

A
t one time or another, every teacher on playground duty has been confronted by a small child complaining, “He hitted me!” The child has learned the correct way to form the past tense of a verb, but, unfortunately, he or she chose the wrong verb. If the child had been pushed, punched, kicked, pulled, or shoved, there would be no problem. This illustrates the fact that, while we do indeed acquire most of the spelling rules by reading and writing, the formal teaching of spelling is still absolutely necessary.

Note that one word that cannot be modified is unique. If something is unique, then it is the only one. There are no others. It cannot be more unique or less unique or even most unique. Either it is unique, or it is not.

The rule for forming the past tense of English verbs is quite simple and applies to most of the single syllable words in general use. It also applies to practically all the multisyllable words.

Spelling rule #1: Add
ed
to the end of the word:

Note that the ending
ed
is hardly ever pronounced clearly. Usually it is cut short, spoken very softly, or has a soft
t
sound. The clearest pronunciation will be at the end of a multi-syllable word like
consolidated, disconnected,
or
ventilated
. We need only listen to a Shakespearean play to realize that in the past most
ed
endings were pronounced much more clearly.

There is a small group of words that have a final sound closer to a
t
although they have the
ed
ending. Usually this
t
sound occurs after the letters
p
or
k
.

Another group of words uses the
t
instead of the
ed
ending. The argument over whether to use the
t
or the
ed
ending is not new. Long before the advent of the printing press, writers used one or the other and sometimes both, often without any logical reason. The spelling reformers
of the 19th century preferred the
t
ending because it suited their desire for phonetic spelling, but the
ed
ending poses no difficulties in either pronunciation or understanding, and by sticking to the rule we avoid yet another complication and retain uniformity.

Spelling rule #2: As a general rule, the
ed
ending should be used for the simple past tense. Verbs that end in
t
should be reserved for use as the past participle with the auxiliary verbs
have
and
had
.

The past tense of
sleep
was once
sleeped,
but that form has almost vanished in favor of
slept
. On the other hand, the past tense of
kill
is usually
killed,
but there are some regional dialects that use
kilt
. Similarly, the word
clapt
has given way to
clapped
. In card games, especially poker, the word
dealed
is often used instead of
dealt
. Although currently incorrect, it may one day be acceptable. Unfortunately, the correct past tense
shined
is moving in the opposite direction and the irregular
shone
is becoming more popular.

There is a small group of words that have no past tense.

The irregular past tense contains numerous interesting words, many of which have come down to us from the Anglo-Saxon and have suffered surprisingly little change over the centuries. They are short, basic, frequently used, single syllable words and they have a variety of endings. Clearly, many of these words were originally past participles, but over the years the regular past tense vanished and, as we no longer say
builded
or
spended,
the words have to serve as both past tense and past participle.

Note that the verb
to be
has its own unique rules, which are too complex for inclusion in this small book.

Past
and
passed
are often confused and misused.
Passed
is a verb only, but
past
is an adjective that may also be used as a noun or even an adverb.

Note that
waked
is an acceptable past tense in place of the more popular
woke,
but both
awakened
and
awoke
are still in use.

In the present tense, we
hang
both things and people. In the past tense,
hanged
is reserved for criminals, while
hung
refers to suspended inanimate objects.