My experience watching an episode of the ‘Nigerian Idol’ talent show, last week, inspired this lesson. While one of the judges was commenting on the performance of a contestant (the budding singer gave his name as Benjamin) he said: You should have sang another song. A word in the clause stung my ears. You should have sang?
Old members of this class should have no problem joining me to say, ‘No.’ The reason is that we have treated the issue involved on more than one occasion. The lesson may, therefore, pass for a revision to such people.
Yet, there should be something fresh to learn based on today’s perspective.
The judge had made a mistake that many of us make while handling irregular verbs.
These are words that do not take d or ed when they turn into the past tense, present participle or the past participle. Regular verbs like dance, treat, kick, advise etc. are easy to handle in this wise. All you need to do is add d or ed to the words, depending on whether or not it ends with an e. So, dance, treat, kick, advise automatically become danced, treated, kicked and advised. This is, however, unlike irregular verbs whose behaviour is unpredictable during the process of transforming into the other tenses.
Consider teach, build, come and go. While ‘teach’ becomes taught (both past tense and present/past participle), the other elements respectively become built, came/come and went/gone.
This is the family in which ‘sing’ is situated. While the present tense is ‘sing’, the past is ‘sang’. Most importantly, the present/past participle is NOT sang, and this is where many people miss it. The required word is ‘sung’.
Here is how it goes:
I want to sing.
I sing always.
I sang yesterday.
I have sang. (Wrong)
I have sung. (Correct)
You should have sang another song. (Wrong)
You should have sung another song. (Correct)
Other related words you need to handle smartly are begin, ring and run. Wrong expressions:
They have began the meeting.
The boy has rang the bell.
I learnt they’ve ran around the field three times.
Correct expressions:
They have begun the meeting.
The boy has rung the bell.
I learnt they’ve run around the field three times.
Meanwhile, master the present, past and participle forms of the following irregular verbs too: choose, lose, bend, flee, fling, cast, bear, breed, bleed, bite, burst, hurt, creep forecast, forsake, grind, hang, weave, lie, light, rerun, shine, swing and sublet.
Credit: Akeem Lasisi, Punch