From this story: As Phelps Sulks, His Runner-Up Celebrates
I can deal with it when people in the supermarket don’t use it right – and yeah, it’s not that important, in the whole scheme of things – compared to Darfur, say, or the economy – but the NY Times? C’mon…
First one should be “swum”, second should remain “swam”? Am I right?
To be honest, that has always confused me; I’m not surprised if it confounds others too.
And the more people do it wrong, the more it becomes the new standard.
I’d be happy if the folks at my local paper (the Journal-Constitution, Atlanta’s one and only major daily paper) would just stop using dangling modifiers.
Are you joking? No, apparently not. Apparently, some people use ‘swum’ and have even put it in a few dictionaries. I’ve never heard or used it once in my entire life, but there it is.
This, on the other hand, makes perfect sense.
Is the complaint about “swam” or about “his clocking”?
Sailboat
After swimming, the clock displayed a new record.
Or is that a misplaced modifier?
Reminds me of people I knew in college who would say things like “I haven’t drank since Tuesday.”
Who’d’a thunk it?
Thank God for “living” languages. Not literate? Wait a bit and you will be, with a dictionary to prove it. :rolleyes:
I would have avoided the past participle in favor of a rewrite:
“His time of 47.92 would have broken the American record even one day earlier. Instead, it left him third…” etc.
Why use a complicated structure when a simpler one will do, and do better?
I just checked the OED and dictionary.com, and neither of them gives a definition for “literate” that means “able to perfectly use grammar.”
So your comment doesn’t make sense yet, but I’m sure if you wait a few years we’ll be able to understand you.
And with all your snarky sarcasm, you couldn’t be bothered to maybe explain what the problem is, since you just can’t beLIEVE that someone didn’t know? :rolleyes:
You’re absolutely right. Please, by all means, continue fighting the good fight. I for one cannot wait until “LOL” is acceptable usage everywhere.
Or, just perhaps, we can criticize people who do not use grammar and punctuation correctly in the hopes that we can teach them the correct usage, therefore forestalling the inevitable devolution of English and submitting to idiocy.
Yeah, the first one should be swum. Maybe I shoulda noted that. Like I say, when Joe Blow doesn’t always get the rules right, that’s one thing. But for those who get to write stories for the FRONT PAGE of the NY Times, shouldn’t a mastery of all the basic rules sort of be a prerequisite?
Am I getting whoosed by Zweisamkeit, or does he really think there’s no such thing as swum? I don’t get that comment…
I would hazard a guess that some editor rewrote the sentence in order to shorten it and the tenses went wrong.
As happened to Latin, I believe, necessitating the First Council of Turin to sit down and meticulously plan out the Romance languages in order to salvage western Europe from gibbering incomprehension. It was a tough transition into the restoration of communication, but, of course, as it happened, none could complain.
Um, “swum” is the past participle for the verb “to swim.” This isn’t anything recent, so far as I know. I had always been taught swim/swam/swum, and the standardized tests on English I could find online have “swum” as the past participle. (This one, for example, Answer 7.) If you are following formal English grammar, “swum” is indeed the correct verb in the first sentence, not “swam.”
More citations:
The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, 1993
American Heritage English Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000
If that’s too modern for you, we have The American Language, 1921 by H.L. Mencken.
(the second reference for “swum” on that page).
(I’m a she). A sort of whoosh, I guess? I know swim/swam/swum. I was a writing tutor at my uni and no one had problems with ‘swum’ (used correctly). I was also really rankled at Derleth’s snotty attitude while not only (if I was reading him correctly, and since pulykamell says what I was thinking about ‘swum’, I think I am) being wrong, but also not even providing how he would think he was right.
I love parenthetical asides, if you can’t tell. 
Psst. Nobody tell the OP that I get paid to write in English, and I’ve never ever had any instruction in English grammar.
I don’t even know what a past participle is!
That’s fine, but your copy editors or somebody up the chain should know, or at least how its used in formal writing. From my experience, quite often the best writers/reporters are not necessarily very good in always getting grammar or spelling right, but they have other, more important skills (reporting, interviewing, storytelling, imagination, etc.) that earns them that paycheck. That’s why we hire copy editors and proofreaders.