Grammar: Fun with Verbs

1. Grammar: Fun with Verbs Maintaining Verb Tense & Using Strong Verbs

2. Maintaining Verb Tense What does it mean to “maintain verb tense?”

3. Maintaining Verb Tense • Verb tense reveals time relationships • Series of events • Cause and effect • Mixing verb tenses confuses readers • When did events happen? • What is the relationship between the events? • General Rules • Maintain tense in most situations • Past tense for literary essays

4. Correct the Verbs The king of childish lies is Tom Sawyer. Through Tom’s ridiculous lies, Mark Twain made the reader begin to hate this impractical, unrealistic, unoriginal adolescent. His immature lies are to gain a sense of adventure like in his books and they occasionally hurt people. Tom tricked Huck into coming with him to see the caravan of “A-rabs and Spaniards.” Huck doesn’t want to go until he learns there will be elephants there too. They go, and of course, nobody is there but young Sunday-schoolers. Huck is disappointed and says, “So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer’s lies” (Twain 14).

5. Maintained Verb Tense The king of childish lies was Tom Sawyer. Through Tom’s ridiculous lies, Mark Twain made the reader begin to hate this impractical, unrealistic, unoriginal adolescent. His immature lies were to gain a sense of adventure like in his books and they occasionally hurt people. Tom tricked Huck into coming with him to see the caravan of “A-rabs and Spaniards.” Huck did not want to go until he learned there would be elephants there, too. They went, and of course, nobody was there but young Sunday-schoolers. Huck was disappointed and said, “So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer’s lies” (Twain 14).

6. Strong Verbs What is a strong verb?

7. Strong Verbs 1) Strong verbs show instead of tell Example: The tiger ate the antelope. The tiger devoured the antelope. Devour implies the tiger ate quickly and messily, whereas ate gives little explanation as to how. Example: The buffalo injured the hunter. The buffalo gored the hunter. What extra information does “gored” give?

8. Strong Verbs 2) Single verbs show better than verb/adverb combinations (and take less space). Example: He uses time wisely when writing essays. He maximizes time when writing essays. Example: The lion ferociously ate the gazelle. The lion gobbled the gazelle.

9. Strong Verbs 3) Be verbs (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been) suck the life out of your writing! Example: He was hit by the boxer—boring and not descriptive. The boxer bludgeoned him—active and descriptive. Example: The pedestrian was run over by the school bus. The school bus smashed the pedestrian.

10. Strong Verbs 4) Have/has/had combined with a noun encourage readers to wedge their head in a vice—be clear and to the point. Example: I had an argument with the referee. I argued with the referee Example: I had dinner with the sheriff. I dined with the sheriff.

11. Strong Verbs A few to try—what are some stronger verbs for each listed? What extra information do those verbs give? Discuss. • To walk • To run • To sleep

12. Paragraph Challenge • Your challenge, should you choose to accept it (you must), is to write a full paragraph using 8+ strong verbs and maintaining verb tense. The best paragraph, as judged by a panel of your peers and your teacher, will receive a special award. • Today’s challenge topic: Zoo!