CHAPTER 10

The Past Tense

At one time or another, every teacher on playground duty has been confronted by a small child

complaining, “He hitted me!” The child has learned the correct way to form the past tense of a verb, but,
unfortunately, he or she chose the wrong verb. If the child had been pushed, punched, kicked, pulled, or
shoved, there would be no problem. This illustrates the fact that, while we do indeed acquire most of the
spelling rules by reading and writing, the formal teaching of spelling is still absolutely necessary.

(^) Note that one word that cannot be modified is unique. If something is unique, then it is the only one. There
are no others. It cannot be more unique or less unique or even most unique. Either it is unique, or it is not.
The rule for forming the past tense of English verbs is quite simple and applies to most of the single
syllable words in general use. It also applies to practically all the multisyllable words.
Spelling rule #1: Add ed to the end of the word:
(^) Note that the ending ed is hardly ever pronounced clearly. Usually it is cut short, spoken very softly, or
has a soft t sound. The clearest pronunciation will be at the end of a multi-syllable word like
consolidated, disconnected, or ventilated. We need only listen to a Shakespearean play to realize that in
the past most ed endings were pronounced much more clearly.
There is a small group of words that have a final sound closer to a t although they have the ed ending.
Usually this t sound occurs after the letters p or k.
(^) Another group of words uses the t instead of the ed ending. The argument over whether to use the t or
the ed ending is not new. Long before the advent of the printing press, writers used one or the other and
sometimes both, often without any logical reason. The spelling reformers of the 19th century preferred the
t ending because it suited their desire for phonetic spelling, but the ed ending poses no difficulties in
either pronunciation or understanding, and by sticking to the rule we avoid yet another complication and
retain uniformity.
Spelling rule #2: As a general rule, the ed ending should be used for the simple past tense. Verbs
that end in t should be reserved for use as the past participle with the auxiliary verbs have and had.
(^) The past tense of sleep was once sleeped, but that form has almost vanished in favor of slept. On the
other hand, the past tense of kill is usually killed, but there are some regional dialects that use kilt.