Verb Tense Practice 4

More Practice with English Verb Tenses

MEANING * FORM * AUXILIARIES * LEXICAL ASPECT * PRACTICE * MORE PRACTICE

LOOK AT THE VERBS IN THIS STORY OF FATHERS' DAY.
What tenses do you find?

Father's Day, contrary to popular misconception, was not established as a holiday in order to help greeting card manufacturers sell more cards. In fact when a "father's day" was first proposed there were no Father's Day cards!

Mrs. John B. Dodd, of Washington, first proposed the idea of a "father's day" in 1909. Mrs. Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart. William Smart, a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife (Mrs. Dodd's mother) died in childbirth with their sixth child. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state. It was after Mrs. Dodd became an adult that she realized the strength and selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent.

The first Father's Day was observed on June 19, 1910 in Spokane Washington. At about the same time in various towns and cities across American other people were beginning to celebrate a "father's day." In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea of a national Father's Day. Finally in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day.

Father's Day has become a day to not only honor your father, but all men who act as a father figure. Stepfathers, uncles, grandfathers, and adult male friends are all be honored on Father's Day.

NOTE:
a. What TIME are most of the verbs? Where does the time change?
b. Note the verbs in the progressive and perfect ASPECTS. Can you see why the writer chose to use these aspects?

NOW TRY THIS:

INSTRUCTIONS

Identify the main time frame (focus) for each section. How do you know? Note places where the time frame switches.
For each verb, decide what time and aspect you think is best. Is there any reason to choose a time that is different from the main time frame of the section? If you choose a perfect or progressive verb, can you explain why?
When you have finished the article, look at the verbs you have written: What "aspect" have you used most? (simple? progressive? perfect?) How often does the main time frame switch from one time to another? Is there a clear signal to the reader? How often are there individual verbs that have a different time from the others in the section?

To compare your answers with the original when you are finished, click here. (A new browser window will appear with this document. With both windows open, you can adjust them so that part of each is always visible, and you can easily move back and forth between them.)

Of course, in many cases more than one verb tense would be possible. If your answer differs from the author's, can you see why he chose the one he did? Are you sure yours would also be possible? Would there be any difference in meaning?

A BULLY FATHER: A Father's Day essay about a bully father by Roger Rosenblatt
PBS ONLINE NEWSHOUR JUNE 14, 1996

There seem to be two kinds of excellent fathers.

One old, austere, dignified to the point of being arch, the kind of father Clarence Day in "Life with Father." The other a kid all his life. Such fathers often a lot of kids to create playmates for themselves. Theodore Roosevelt of the second type of excellent father. He grown-up or really like a parody of a grown-up, with those little glasses and that great moustache, but everyone he a boy in disguise.

When he at Sagamore Hill, his estate in Oyster Bay, Long Island, in 1886, he and his wife Edith in a very little time six children. For the rest of his life, which remarkably not a long life, TR around him a brood of pupils, acolytes, companions, and friends, one of whom he sadly . He horseback with his kids, hunting with them, them, them, . them, as their referee, them. And he . them letters, wonderful letters.

These letters of TR's collected in an engaging anthology by Joan Patterson Kerr. Called A Bully Father, it the correspondence that the years from 1898 to 1911. The letters written to Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Kermit Roosevelt, Ethyl Roosevelt Derby, Archibald Bullock Roosevelt, and Quentin Roosevelt, who killed on patrol in France during World War I. The alert high spirits in their faces. They to be born to play. Their chief playmate them on, and he most encouraging in print, where he could make literature for them. He could hold his children still with letters. He could honor them with words..

Letters from parents to children often a suspect genre. They usually like excuses to write instructive essays or as context for exculpation or as op ed pieces Dickens to his son, Plom, "Never take a mean advantage of anyone in a transaction." Sir Walter Raleigh to his boy, "Be not made an ass to carry the burden of other men." Nichola Sacco of Sacco and Vanzetti to his 13-year-old son, Dante, "Help the weak ones that cry for help."

Roosevelt's letters, on the other hand, real letters. They to his children.

Darling Ethel,
of course you the story of the little prairie girl. I also it with you.

Blessed Kermit,
I delighted to get your letter. I sorry you such a hard time in mathematics but a couple of weeks you right.

Sometimes the letters down on all fours:

Dear Quenteyquee,
the other day when out riding, what should I see in the road ahead of me but a real br'er terrapin and br'er rabbit. They solemnly beside one another and . just as if they out of a book. But as my horse . along, br'er rabbit went lippity, lippity, lippity off into the bushes, and br'er terrapin his head and legs until I .

The President of the United States that letter from the White House on June 21, 1904. Sometimes a Roosevelt letter an arm around the child.

Dear Ted,
I great confidence in you. I you have the ability and, above all, the energy, the perseverance, and the common sense to win out in civil life. That you some hard times and discouraging times, I . no question, but this merely another way of saying that you the common lot.

You to understand Roosevelt's power over people, over everything from these letters. He to be able to translate himself into every situation, into wars and children equally. One reason that he to be the living embodiment of human enthusiasm is that he what he loved -- the hunt, the land, the country, his kids. Who but someone who being President would become a bull moose to get the job back? He intelligently about his kids. He the perils of growing up under a famous father, so to them he a famous father. He their best admirer, their best story teller, their best friend.

Here a letter his kids him in the form of a poem:

Good morning, Mr. President, how you today?
We your orders, we very glad to say.
We around the White House raising up a row,
and if you to know about it, then we you now.
We into the East Room, we into the Red,
and everyone who not in his bed.
We to have a pillow fight with you this very night,
and if you with us, we you very tight."

I Roger Rosenblatt.

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Ann Salzmann
Intensive English Institute
University of Illinois