ABSTRACT

Verbs are complicated to study, not because some ancient, devious grammar teacher conjured conjugations to confuse English classes, but because as English developed over the centuries, it adopted words and language patterns from several early languages in an unplanned, unruly way. If you do not like the messy maze of English grammar, write your congressman to legislate language simplification the way Congress tried to mandate metric utilization. For now, this chapter will review some principles of verbs which are unavoidably complicated but will help you avoid errors in your own writing and on tests.