There are many grammar errors that make my eye twitch, but there is a specific error that absolutely drives me to Madtown. This is the misuse of the Perfect Tense.
As some may or may not know (I have no clue as to what degree people know (or care) about grammar, so to spare any confusion anyone who stumbles upon my blog may have, I'm just going to assume it's minimal), there is more to tense than just past, present, and future. It's like saying the only types of ice cream in existence are vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. However, you can buy vanilla ice cream with cookie dough or Oreo, and you can buy chocolate ice cream with brownie or peanut butter in it, or you can buy strawberry ice cream with...strawberries in it. It's still vanilla/chocolate/strawberry ice cream, but there's just more pizzazz added to it to satisfy your frozen dairy treat craving.
Past, present, and future tenses are like ice cream in this way. However, the extra pizzazz that is added to these three basic tenses are (unfortunately) not cookie dough, brownies, or frozen strawberry chunks but instead auxiliary verbs (is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been), gerunds (verbs with -ing), words like "have/has/had," "would", etc. Much more fun, right?
The tense that I see most people having trouble with is the use of the Perfect Tense. This tense uses a form of the word "have" + a past participle verb. A past participle verb usually ends in -ed. Much, much stress on the "usually." Infinite stress. The word is so stressed that it's having a mental breakdown.
When it doesn't end in -ed in the past participle, the verb is irregular. This means that these verbs don't follow the general rule. In this case, it's the -ed rule. They're rebels. These rebels are verbs such as "drink," "begin," "swim," "spin," etc. (Most commonly words with an "ih" sound in the middle.)
However, because most past participle verbs end in -ed (a past tense trait), people mistakenly believe that irregular verbs should be in their past tense form too. Ladies and gentlemen, despite what people may try to inform you, THIS MISCONCEPTION IS NOT TRUE. It is a LIE. Do not listen to these people.
The most common irregular verb used in this tense that I see used incorrectly is the word "drink." Here is what people write:
INCORRECT: I had drank three glasses before I realized that my apple juice was spiked.
Now that you've read it, forget that this misconception ever existed. Don't even push it to the back of your mind where it can be recollected later. Take it out of your brain and burn it until its ashes are but mere powder and lock this powder into a safe, lock it, and throw the safe into the river. And, while you're at it, burn the key and throw its remains into the river as well.
The correct form of an irregular past participle verb is to replace the common "ih" sound with an "uh" sound. "Drink" would become "drunk." "Spin" would become "spun." Etc.
Here is how the sentence should read.
CORRECT: I had drunk three glasses before I realized that my apple juice was spiked.
Cherish this knowledge with your life. The incorrect way to write this sentence has been used so often that people actually believe that it is correct. Don't be one of those people. Remember the rules of irregular past participle verbs and resist the lies that Satan--uh, I mean people who misuse the past participle--offer you. It may save your life. Or just make you appear more intelligent. I like to live in a world where it does both.
