For one of my education classes we have to present a Daily Oral Usage question. Our fellow classmates are called on (or volunteer) to correct the sentence we give them. It is our job as the presenter/teacher to be able to clarrify their explanations for the correction they did. We are also supposed to help them out when they are struggling with the presise explanation or grammar correction itself. Now I, being grammatically challenged, am struggling with why I chose to make the corrections I did on the given sentences. So my question is this
What is the correct form for using the irregular verb drink in this sentence and why.
**we have drank all of the gatorade betty but dad will buy some more for we kids. **
The reason I ask this question because it has become a debate in our classroom. Some might change the sentence to:
**We drank all the gatorade, Betty, but dad will buy some more for us kids. **
This is because they chose to delete the helping verb * have * and chose to use the past tense form of * drink * which is * drank *.
or
** We have drunk all the gatorade, Betty, but dad will buy some more for us kids. **
This is because they chose to keep the helping verb * have * and any time you have a helping verb (functioning as an auxiallary) the verb following the helping verb * have * must be in the past participial form which in this case would be * drunk *.
On another note I am not exactly sure what the grammatical reason for deleting the * of * in the sentence other than it seems to be a bit wordy to me. If anyone knows a grammatical explanation please throw it my way. Also, if you see any other faults in my grammatically corrected sentenses feel free to throw suggestions on how to fix it
As is often the case on these questions, it’s not about grammar; it’s about style.
Neither of the last two examples in incorrect. There is a subtle difference in meaning between “we drank” and “we have drunk,” but neither is incorrect.
The change from “all of” to “all” is just replacing an idiomatic phrase with a simpler equivalent. “All of” would not be wrong.
Either is correct. “Have drunk” sounds a bit stiff for spoken speech, almost like something I’d write in a letter or diary. If one prefers the simple past, then deleting “have” is obvious.
Both “we have drunk” and “we drank” are correct constructions. The question is which is more appropriate in the context, since they are two different verb forms meaning two (slightly) different things.
Since the implication of the sentence is that the Gatorade has been consumed and is therefore no longer available to Betty, I would use the present perfect (we have drunk).
A context more amenable to “we drank” would be something like, “We drank all the Gatorade, Betty, but Dad bought some more, so you can have some.”
This question, too, is one of style and not grammar. Some modern writers on style and usage, notably Bryan Garner (A Dictionary of Modern American Usage), prefer minimizing the use of of because it is often intrusive and grammatically unnecessary. But using it here is not grammatically incorrect, simply unnecessary.
The usual use for the the present perfect (“have drunk”) tense is when the action took place in the past but there is a resultant by-product or activity that continues to the present.
As in: “I have eaten lunch and I am no longer hungry.”
The usual use for the simple past (“drank”) tense is when something has happened in the past and there is no continuing activity or resulant action.
As in: “I saw the church in Castle Rock.”
Since the second independent clause in your compound sentence seems a result of the first, I would suggest the present perfect tense, but that being said; in common usage, either would be acceptable.
