The recent Summer Olympics were a joy for those who love to watch elite athletes in competition. For those who love grammar, however, watching the Tokyo games was a constant cringe.
Not because there were so many athletes from around the world who struggled with English — that was expected. But because the American announcers didn’t know the difference between present, past and present perfect — between swim, swam and swum. Can you imagine?
Fortunately, with the Winter Olympics still a few months away — in Beijing next February — the broadcasters have time to learn about irregular verbs and their past participles before they’re back on the air. I’ll try to help.
As we all know, there are regular verbs and irregular verbs. The regular ones — walk, for example — are easy to transform into past tense and present perfect tense. For past tense, take the present tense and add an – ed. For present perfect tense, use that –ed word, preceded by has or have.
Present tense: I walk. Past: I walked. Present perfect: I have walked.
Unfortunately, many Olympics-related verbs are not regular. Run. Swim. Throw. Break. Each of these has unique past and present perfect tenses. Our announcers didn’t seem to know that. “She has ran that distance much faster,” one declared. “They have swam their hearts out,” cooed another. As a primer for them, here is how to use these verbs in present, past and present perfect tenses.
She runs. She ran. She has run.
They swim. They swam. They have swum.
I throw. I threw. I have thrown.
He breaks. He broke. He has broken.
Like athletes, it’s important for broadcasters to learn from their mistakes by the time the next games come around. They need to ask themselves now: Can I use luge as a verb? What’s the past tense of bobsleigh? And does a skeleton rider lay or lie on their sled?
Neil Chethik, aka the Grammar Gourmet, is executive director at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning (www.carnegieliteracy. org) and author of “FatherLoss” and “VoiceMale.” The Carnegie Center offers writing classes and seminars for businesses and individuals. Contact Neil at neil@carnegieliteracy.org or (859) 254-4175.