Practice Makes Perfect

Although the first example is considered better grammatically, the second example sentence is

the most commonly used.

Another kind of example involves the verb to dive. Its past tense is either regular (dived) or irreg-

ular (dove). What is the difference? Essentially, none. Both forms are used correctly as the past

tense. But English is evolving. Things are changing. And the English-speaking world is deciding

whether it wants the past tense of the verb to diveto be regular or irregular. It may take quite a

while longer to learn what that decision will be. So for the time being you’ll continue to hear

both divedand dovein the past tense.

There is a similar case with the verb to prove. Nowadays, many people use provedas the participle

in a perfect tense: “He has proved” or “We had not proved.” But there are others who still use

the archaic form (proven), which today is generally accepted as an adjective, in place of proved:

“He has proven” or “We had not proven.”

The point here is that grammar rules will guide you toward speaking and writing better English.

But many rules of grammar are broken by certain casual or popular usages and still others

become unclear because the language is in a state of transition. Where these deviations occur,

they will be discussed in this book, because if English learners only know that whoshould be used

as a subject of a sentence, they will be confused by what occurs in casual language: “Whodid you

visit in New York?”

However, just knowing the rules of grammar is not enough. This book will also provide you with

abundant practice in using English grammar. The more you practice, the more you become pro-

ficient in how you use English and to what extent you understand it. There are various kinds of

exercises to allow you to manipulate the language from different angles. The Answer Key at the

end of the book gives you not only the right answers but also suggestions as to how an exercise

should be completed.

English grammar isn’t necessarily a chore. Indeed, it can be your key to unlocking a very rich

treasure.

viii Introduction

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