It’s difficult to understand how any native English speaker manages to complete eight years of formal education without mastering irregular verb forms. When people who view themselves as writers or entrepreneurs won’t take the trouble to learn them, they stamp themselves as unprofessional.
The following examples have been taken from writing blogs and professional sites:
Automobile dealership
INCORRECT: Since then Brian has ran some of the largest dealerships in the country…
CORRECT : Since then Brian has run some of the largest dealerships in the country…
Public accountant site
INCORRECT: [An avid runner,] he has ran every Portland Marathon since 1986.
CORRECT : [An avid runner,] he has run every Portland Marathon since 1986.
LinkedIn
INCORRECT: I have wrote a short story that I want to turn into a book. What steps should I take 1st?
CORRECT : I have written a short story that I want to turn into a book. What steps should I take first?
Writing blog
INCORRECT: I too have wrote stories in the past with no direction and it simply doesn’t work for me.
CORRECT : I too have written stories in the past with no direction and it simply doesn’t work for me.
Nursing Assistant Skills Preparation site
INCORRECT: [Ask patient] if they have ate, drank, or smoked anything in the last 15 minutes.
CORRECT : [Ask patient] if they have eaten, drunk, or smoked anything in the last 15 minutes.
Principal Parts of run, write, eat, drink:
run, ran, (has) run
write, wrote, (has) written
eat, ate, (has) eaten
drink, drank, (has) drunk
Related posts
Irregular Past Participle Forms
Beware of the Irregular Past Participle Forms
Verb Review #1 Run and Drink
Learn the Forms of Drink, Please
I cringe whenever I read or hear bad grammar. It causes a physical reaction in me, and I can’t get it out of my mind. I’m a person without a college degree, but I learned that speaking correctly goes a long way. Can’t understand why no one seems to care.
These misuses are uncomfortably common and it says something about bad language in general, beyond writing. The fact that, “I have wrote” or, “I had ran” does not just sound horribly wrong is distressing, yet it’s heard a lot. “Had drank” is equally bad, but probably does not even sound incorrect to a large number of people; and broke as opposed to broken as both a past participle and an adjective is probably the more common form now. E.g., “He couldn’t walk because he had broke his leg”, “I can’t count how many cheap widgets I’ve broke over the years”, and “The electrician said a broke connection in the wiring was the problem.” One of the reasons I’m so adamant about proper pronunciation is that most bad writing would probably be fixed by proper speaking. The deterioration of language is led by talking; writing unfailingly follows. Ya know.
It’s odd. I thought we covered ‘run’ with “Dick and Jane” in first grade. Maybe we didn’t get to participles until third grade. Or maybe they’ve all been smoking something in the fifteen minutes before writing their blogs.