# Americans are losing the past participle of verbs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 16, 2018, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022 "2018-07-16T17:04:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/1 "2018-07-16T17:04:04Z")
Half of the time that I hear a sentence with a legitimate present perfect structure with Americans speaking, they forego the past participle and use the past tense instead. (for example: “I’ve did this”) This is from my experience listening… hurts my ears, although it may be a trend I was unaware of before and I am an outlier… ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/2 "2018-07-16T17:09:16Z")
It gets worse; there are those who say, “I done did this.” ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/3 "2018-07-16T17:12:08Z")
Uh, what kind of Americans are you hanging out with?? Only poorly educated people or those deliberately talking “street” would talk that way. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/4 "2018-07-16T18:51:00Z")
For years and years, I’ve been hearing supposedly-educated people say, “I seen something” instead of “I saw” or “I have seen.” ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/5 "2018-07-16T19:02:11Z")
Half? Really? I’m not sure what you mean by “legitimate,” but most past participles are exactly the same as the preterite anyway–(though irregulars are probably more frequently used). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/6 "2018-07-16T19:10:15Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > It gets worse; there are those who say, “I done did this.” That’s actually a feature of a few dialects called the completive aspect. ---
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/7 "2018-07-16T19:13:27Z")
Naturally I am talking about irregular verbs. Just as an example of weird American usage, I was watching this video about label removal where at various times the author repeatedly says “most of the paint come off” . This is just a past tense screwup. And the basis of my original post about past participles mostly comes from listening to YouTube videos. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/V5ObBIR-69w/maxresdefault.jpg "Remove Labels From Glass Bottles - Experiment") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5ObBIR-69w) ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/8 "2018-07-16T19:16:37Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > For years and years, I’ve been hearing supposedly-educated people say, “I seen something” instead of “I saw” or “I have seen.” There’s also an app called [i done this](https://idonethis.com/). ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/9 "2018-07-16T19:41:08Z")
Using “seen” as the simple past of “see” is, I think, a fairly standard part of African American Vernacular English. I wonder if it came from omission of part of the contracted form of the present ("I’ve seen -\> I seen) or a reanalysis of “see” ( I seed - \> I seen) Nothing to do with education; some people just speak differently than others. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/10 "2018-07-16T20:05:43Z")
I’ve lived on the West Coast almost all my life and these examples are _always_ considered wrong … never used except when the speaker wants the listener to think them stupid … “What are this” is perfectly acceptable coming from [Jenna Marble’s dog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4sXjJJjcWQ) {YouTube 2’22"} … ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/11 "2018-07-17T17:37:07Z")
My fav that seems to be more use, “What had happened was I was (she was/they were/it was) …” ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/12 "2018-07-17T17:53:53Z")
I think it all began when they started drinking ice tea with shave ice. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/13 "2018-07-17T18:14:12Z")
Right on this board people type the phrase “I got bit.” It’s “I was bitten.” Saying “I got bit” makes you sound like you’re Humphrey Bogart’s rummy sidekick Walter Brennan in _To Have And Have Not_. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/14 "2018-07-17T19:09:52Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I think it all began when they started drinking ice tea with shave ice. Yep, I’m afraid “ice tea” is worming its way into the language, in large part I suspect because the hard consonant in “tea” makes it practically indistinguishable in speech from the correct form. If someone asked me for the stuff, I’d make sure I was hearing them correctly, and then bring them either iced tea or a frozen tea-flavored popsicle on a stick, according to their wishes. > [@teela\_brown](#): > > Right on this board people type the phrase “I got bit.” > > It’s “I was bitten.” Saying “I got bit” makes you sound like you’re Humphrey Bogart’s rummy sidekick Walter Brennan in _To Have And Have Not_. I don’t get that sense. To me anything that starts with “I got …” suggests a colloquialism, and in informal usage I’d say “bit” can be acceptable as a dialectal past participle of “bite”. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/15 "2018-07-17T20:41:32Z")
> [@bardos](#): > > Half of the time that I hear a sentence with a legitimate present perfect structure with Americans speaking, they forego the past participle and use the past tense instead. (for example: “I’ve did this”) This is from my experience listening… hurts my ears, although it may be a trend I was unaware of before and I am an outlier… Can you link to an example of someone saying “I’ve did”? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/16 "2018-07-17T23:00:27Z")
I would’ve asked my grammar professor, but he upped and went. And yes, “I’ve did this” has never been spoken except conceivably by an English learner in week two of classes. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/17 "2018-07-18T06:42:01Z")
The OP is probably reacting to something which, while not the huge, sudden shift of usage the OP paints it to be, still happens. It’s most common, I believe, with _ **go** _, when used in the perfective. Moreover, a corpus search of _ **have went** _ shows that about 80-90% of these are with modals, so we get a lot of speech like: \*President Obama must have went, oh, my gosh, every time she says something . . . _[spoken on Fox News]_"We could have went ahead and got married with her going through chemotherapy . . .” \* [Quoted in the \*Detroit News] \*Etc. It’s clearly almost completely a spoken phenomenon, but I found two cases in print, (in sports columns). Here’s an example from the Baltimore Sun) [April 28, 2017 – see item #11](http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravens/ravens-insider/bal-15-thoughts-on-the-ravens-as-we-enter-day-2-of-the-draft-20170428-story.html)) > [@Jeff Zrebiee](#): > > - > > I’ve said my piece and probably would have went elsewhere with the pick, . . .\* And this in the Bleacher Report ([March 28, 2017—item #20, about Alex Rodriguez](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2699455-ranking-the-25-best-baseball-players-of-all-time#slide0)): > [@Andrew Gould](#): > > If not for the change of position and PED drama, he may have went down as the game’s greatest shortstop. So it does indeed happen. I doubt, however, that the OP says, \*I’ve wrought all day long._though wrought was once the participle of work. And the OP might just as likely say, I’ve proved you wrong.as_I’ve proven you wrong.\*Yes, these forms change, but it’s not some sudden thing that just happens overnight. ---
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/18 "2018-07-18T07:17:51Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > The OP is probably reacting to something which, while not the huge, sudden shift of usage the OP paints it to be, still happens. It’s most common, I believe, with _ **go** _, when used in the perfective. Moreover, a corpus search of _ **have went** _ shows that about 80-90% of these are with modals, so we get a lot of speech like: \*President Obama must have went, oh, my gosh, every time she says something . . . _[spoken on Fox News]_"We could have went ahead and got married with her going through chemotherapy . . .” \* > [Quoted in the \*Detroit News] > \*Etc. > > It’s clearly almost completely a spoken phenomenon, but I found two cases in print, (in sports columns). Here’s an example from the Baltimore Sun) [April 28, 2017 – see item #11](http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravens/ravens-insider/bal-15-thoughts-on-the-ravens-as-we-enter-day-2-of-the-draft-20170428-story.html)) And this in the Bleacher Report ([March 28, 2017—item #20, about Alex Rodriguez](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2699455-ranking-the-25-best-baseball-players-of-all-time#slide0)):So it does indeed happen. I doubt, however, that the OP says, \*I’ve wrought all day long._though wrought was once the participle of work. And the OP might just as likely say, I’ve proved you wrong.as_I’ve proven you wrong.\*Yes, these forms change, but it’s not some sudden thing that just happens overnight. Yeah, that’s right, I hear it mostly with modals… I am an English teacher who has lived overseas most of my life (mostly teaching British English by the way) and I’ve been back in the states now for about a year and a half and have been slightly taken aback by some American usage. Yes, the trend seems to me to simplify, simplify, get rid of the Olde English, as well as verbally ignoring many irregular verb forms and turning them into regulars: Learnt = learned, burnt = burned etc. Who knew that here on Planet Urth I would turn into an old fogy/fogey? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/19 "2018-07-18T07:25:15Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > And yes, “I’ve did this” has never been spoken except conceivably by an English learner in week two of classes. It does get spoken with modals, though. Larry King, on his show, Dec. 27, 1999:LARRY KING: And do you often say or not often say, I should have did this? JODIE FOSTER: Oh, yes, all the time, sure, I wish I would have done this differently. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-losing-the-past-participle-of-verbs/818022/20 "2018-07-18T08:03:17Z")
I hear usages like “have ran”, “have ate” and “have went” all. the. time. nowadays, often from professional radio talent–in some cases even on NPR. Or in the IT working environment, “been ran” or “was ran” (as in a computer process). All from educated native speakers, too, since it wouldn’t even ping my radar coming from an ESL speaker. All of this really grates on me, but it’s just the way it crumbles, analytical language wise. I feel like the last gracious ornaments of the language are being bludgeoned away and it will soon be akin to an urban high school that had to be rebuilt circa 1973. As for just how and why this happens, it seems that more and more people are unable to handle irregular verbs with more than one change of vowel. I think usually, but not always, it’s the form most like the present tense that gets dropped and the less similar one is kept. So “ate” and “went” displace “eaten” and “gone”. OTOH “sunk” and “stunk” displace “sank” and “stank”. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk