Verbs

All verbs, whether regular or irregular, have five forms [often called principal parts]. These forms are the infinitive, simple present, simple past, past participle, andpresent participle.
Writers make two frequent errors with irregular verbs. They either add an incorrect ed to the end of an irregular verb or accidentally interchange the simplepast and past participle. Read this sentence:
Olivia feeled like exercising yesterday, so she putted on her bathing suit and drived to the YMCA, where she swum so far thatonly an extra large pepperoni pizza would satisfy her hunger.
What are the problems with this sentence? First, feeled should be felt. Next, putted needs to be put. The correctpast tense of drive is drove. And we must change swum to swam.
When you choose an irregular verb for a sentence, however, the simple past and past participle are oftendifferent, so you must know the distinction. Here are two examples:
Essie drove so cautiously that traffic piled up behind her, causing angry drivers to honk their horns and shoutobscenities.
drove = simple past
Essie might have driven faster if she hadn't forgotten her glasses and saw more than big colored blurs through the windshield.might, have = auxiliary verbs; driven = past participle

| Base Form | Past Simple | Past Participle |
With regular verbs, the rule is simple... |
The past simple and pastparticiple always end in -ed: | finish | finished | finished |
| stop | stopped | stopped |
| work | worked | worked |
But with irregular verbs, there is no rule... |Sometimes the verb changes completely: | sing | sang | sung |
Sometimes there is "half" a change: | buy | bought | bought |
Sometimes there is no change: | cut | cut | cut |