"I seen him a few hours ago." How many times have you heard this one? It's like fingernails on a chalkboard. All right, let's put this one to rest and make the professor happy.
Remember a previous post when I said the principal parts of a verb are present tense, past tense, and the past participial form? Good. Also, do you remember I said the past participial form uses a helping verb? Wow! You guys really are smart.
This is the long and the short of it. Since you "seen" him a few hours ago, it implies it was in the past. Therefore, you use the past tense form "saw" since there is no helping verb in that statement.
"Seen" is always, always, always the form used with a helping verb. . .have, has, had, etc. That means the correct statement should be, "I had seen him a few hours ago."
Bottom line, never, and I mean never, use "seen" without a helping verb. Don't do it!
By the way, I still have not figured out why I was so short on time as I mentioned in yesterday's post. Very vexing.
About Me
- Random Musings
- Obviously, the picture is not of me. It's our pride and joy, Daisy. She's a lot better looking than I am, so I figured you'd want to look at her instead. I'll write the posts, however. She can't. She doesn't have opposable thumbs. Currently, I teach high school English, and, since I'm trying to improve the use of language in 16-year-olds, I thought I'd branch out and give some pointers to adults, too. Hope you're not offended. It's just my way of improving the world -- one day at a time. Oh, by the way, I'm always available for freelance writing/editing jobs -- and I'm pretty inexpensive, so. . .
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