The word 'tense' comes from 'tempus', the Latin word for time. Some languages like Mandarin Chinese don’t have verb tenses but express time in different ways. When writing, it’s important to use the ...

No matter how long you’ve been speaking English, no matter how hard you’ve worked to perfect your grammar, some past tense verbs can stump you. For example, the day after you decide to grin and bear ...

Explore the evolutionary dynamics of language through verb changes seen from Old English to modern times. Discover the future of irregular verbs. For decades, scientists have realised that languages ...

Mastering English tenses is crucial for fluency, enabling precise communication of when actions occur. The English tense system organizes time into past, present, and future, each with simple, ...

Sometimes you know a word has two forms, but you 're not sure which one is appropriate to use in the situation at hand. This happens a lot with verbs, where past-tense forms can compete for acceptance ...

There are two main classes of verbs in English: strong and weak. 'Strong' is a historical terms that refers to the of verbs in which the past tense is marked by a change in the base vowel and the ...

Many of us who write and speak in English will likely be surprised when told that unlike the Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian among them), English doesn’t have a ...

This article is reposted from the old WordPress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. The blog is on holiday until the start of October, when I’ll return with fresh material. For decades, ...