Verb Conjugation–Grammar Rules

Verb conjugation refers to how a verb changes to show a different person, tense, number or mood.

Person:

In English, we have six different persons: first person singular (I), second person singular (you), third person singular (he/she/it/one), first person plural (we), second person plural (you), and third person plural (they). We must conjugate a verb for each person. The verb to be is a particularly notable verb for conjugation because it’s irregular.

Conjugation of the Irregular Verb to Be:

First Person Singular	Second Person Singular	Third Person Singular
I am	you are	he/she/it is
First Person Plural	Second Person Plural	Third Person Plural
we are	you are	they are

Tense:

Verbs are also conjugated according to their tenses. Verb tense indicates when the action in a sentence is happening (e.g., in the present, future, or past). Regular verbs follow a standard pattern when conjugated according to tense. Look at the examples below: Conjugation of the Regular Verb to Live (based on tense):

Simple Present	Simple Past	Simple Future
live	lived	will live
Present Continuous	Past Continuous	Future Continuous
am living	was living	will be living
Present Perfect	Past Perfect	Future Perfect
have lived	had lived	will have lived
Present Perfect Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous	Future Perfect Continuous
have been living	had been living	will have been living

Conjugation of the Regular Verb to Work (based on tense):

Simple Present	Simple Past	Simple Future
work	worked	will work
Present Continuous	Past Continuous	Future Continuous
am working	was working	will be working
Present Perfect	Past Perfect	Future Perfect
have worked	had worked	will have worked
Present Perfect Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous	Future Perfect Continuous
have been working	had been working	will have been working

Irregular verbs do not follow a standard pattern when conjugated according to verb tense. The following examples illustrate this point: Conjugation of the Irregular Verb to Eat (based on tense):

Simple Present	Simple Past	Simple Future
eat	ate	will eat
Present Continuous	Past Continuous	Future Continuous
am eating	was eating	will be eating
Present Perfect	Past Perfect	Future Perfect
have eaten	had eaten	will have eaten
Present Perfect Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous	Future Perfect Continuous
have been eating	had been eating	will have been eating

Conjugation of the Irregular Verb to Drink (based on tense):

Simple Present	Simple Past	Simple Future
drink	drank	will drink
Present Continuous	Past Continuous	Future Continuous
am drinking	was drinking	will be drinking
Present Perfect	Past Perfect	Future Perfect
have drunk	had drunk	will have drunk
Present Perfect Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous	Future Perfect Continuous
have been drinking	had been drinking	will have been drinking

What Do Adjectives Modify?

Adjectives are words that modify nouns. They are often called “describing words” because they give us further details about a noun, such as what it looks like (the white horse), how many there are (the three boys) or which one it is (the last house). Adjectives do not modify verbs or other adjectives.

Most often, adjectives are easy to identify in a sentence because they fall right before the nouns they modify.

The old clock hung upon the wall.

A white horse galloped across the lush, green grass.

Have you met our three handsome boys?

Ours is the last house on the street.

In these sentences, old, white, lush, green, three, handsome, and last are all adjectives; they give us a more detailed description of the nouns they modify. An adjective might answer the mental questions, “What kind is it?” (as with an old clock, a white horse, the lush grass, the green grass, or the handsome boys), “How many are there?” (as with the three boys), or “Which one is it?” (as with the last house). Adjectives that answer the first question are descriptive adjectives. Those that answer the other two questions are limiting adjectives—they restrict or quantify a noun rather than describing it.

The five ladies go to Las Vegas every year.

Those flowers must go on that table.

She gave the best piece to her mother.

The examples above use the limiting adjectives five (how many ladies?), every (which year/s?), those (which flowers?), that (which table?), best (which piece?) and her (whose mother?). Technically, definite articles (the) and indefinite articles (a/an) also function as limiting adjectives.

Predicate Adjectives

Although many adjectives fall before the nouns they modify, as in the examples above, those used in sentences or clauses with linking verbs fall after the nouns they modify. Linking verbs describe a state of being rather than an action; the most common linking verb is to be, and others include sense verbs like appear, seem, look, smell, sound, and taste.

Cynthia is fatigued.

Those muffins look delicious.

The sunrise seemed golden.

Do you think this spaghetti sauce tastes spicy?

With linking verbs, adjectives like fatigued, delicious, golden, and spicy all fall after the nouns they modify (Cynthia, muffins, sunrise, spaghetti sauce).

It’s a Barnyard Full of Animal Idioms

These idioms about animals are the cat’s meow. Here’s a short list of animal-related idioms and what they mean:

• Curiosity Killed the Cat: asking a lot of questions can get you into trouble.

I’d be careful with your investigation. Curiosity killed the cat, after all.

• Cry Wolf: give a cry for help or alarm when there is no danger.

He cried wolf so many times before that when he was attacked, no one came to his rescue.

• Beat a Dead Horse: talk about an idea or issue over and over again.

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but I really think we need to go over our sales strategy again.

• Sick As a Dog: incredibly sick.

I tried to get out of bed this morning, but I’m sick as a dog.

• For the Birds: something that is not worth one’s time; unimportant.

Don’t worry about those little details; they’re for the birds.

• Smell a rat: suspect inauthenticity or deliberate trickery.

He says he just wants to help our cause, but I smell a rat.

If you want to learn more about idioms, read this post explaining idioms about money.

10 Words That English Needs

A young man named John Koenig was trying to write poems. However, some emotions seemed difficult to express in words. He had the idea of creating words for these previously unnamed feelings in a dictionary. Thus, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows was born. He began a website and a web series on Youtube that introduced his words to the world. Now, people everywhere can contribute to the dictionary.

Ten of The Coolest Words

The dictionary has over a hundred entries. Here are ten of the most intriguing invented words. To which of them do you relate the most?

Lachesism is the desire to experience disaster—a hurricane, a plane crash, a shipwreck, etc.—in order to disturb the smooth and predictable path of your life and “forge it into something hardened and flexible and sharp.”

Exulansis is the inclination to avoid relating an experience until the memory begins to feel foreign to you.

Avenoir is the wish that memory could flow backward. The image conjured is of a rower facing backward in order to see the path that he is leaving. So much in life now is anticipation for the future. What if we could anticipate the past?

Altschmerz expresses the weariness you feel with the same old imperfections and worries. After “gnawing” them so long, they become “soggy and tasteless and inert.” Are you so tired of your flaws that you would welcome a fresh issue? You have experienced altschmerz.

Occhiolism is the acknowledgment that your perspective is truly limited, so much so that you can’t make any real conclusions about anything.

Liberosis is the desire to care less. If you worry about strangers crossing the street, whether the postman will bring the mail on time, and if you will still have all your favorite things in five years, you might wish for liberosis.

Vellichor is the odd melancholy and longing of secondhand bookstores. Aren’t they “somehow infused with the passage of time”? Think about it; all the characters whose stories you’ll never read in your lifetime. What thoughts captured will never be set free from their paper prisons?

Rückkehrunruhe describes how you feel after a long journey. The memories are so fresh, but already they are starting to recede as your everyday life rushes in to reclaim you.

Gnossienne is the flash of awareness that you really don’t know the people that you thought you knew best. Your spouse, your friends, your family members have a mysterious side of them that you will never fully discover. It’s like “a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading to a wing of the house that you’ve never fully explored…”

Anecdoche occurs when everyone talks but nobody listens. Each speaker contributes, but none of the pieces add up to anything. Eventually, there’s nothing left to say and anecdoche is over.

Can you relate to these obscure sorrows? Have you experienced your own unique emotions? You need not leave these sentiments unexpressed. If there is no word, invent one and submit it to John Koenig’s website. For those who long to see a book version rather than read about these feelings online, a book version is scheduled to be released in 2017. Wait a minute; is there a word for yearning for the texture of paper in your fingers in these increasingly paperless times?

How to Use “Alike” and “Same” Correctly

A well-known idiom says that great minds think alike. It’s what we say when two people think of the same great idea at the same time. History is full of examples that reaffirm the claim that great minds think alike, with discoveries and inventions like the jet engine and the theory of evolution being made at roughly the same time by different people. However, this idiom is interesting to us for an entirely different reason. When you say that all great minds think alike, you are using “alike” correctly. Being an adverb, “alike” is used to modify the verb that precedes it, in this case “think.” A common misuse of “alike” is when we use it as an adjective, as in this sentence:

The two scientists had alike ideas about the Big Bang.

In that sentence, we were trying to modify the noun “ideas.” By using “alike” instead of an adjective, we effectively modified the verb in the sentence—“had.” If we were to rewrite the sentence correctly, we would have to say:

The two scientists had similar ideas about the Big Bang.

Or maybe,

The two scientists had the same ideas about the Big Bang.

So now that we know that “alike” is an adverb and that it should be used to modify verbs. Just as it’s common to incorrectly use “alike” when we should be using the adjective “same,” it’s also common to make a mistake the other way around and use “same” as an adverb when we should be using “alike”:

All great minds think the same.

Because “same” is an adjective and not an adverb, in this sentence it could only modify “all great minds.” But since we want to point out that their thinking is similar, not the minds themselves, we say that they think alike. But we could add a noun for the adjective “same” to modify and make the sentence work:

All great minds think the same thing.

This sentence might not be true, but it’s grammatically correct, with “same” being used as an adjective which modifies the noun “thing.”