That Sinking Feeling

Sink, sank, sunk. When I see these words misused, I get that sinking feeling.

Sink, sank, have sunk.

Shrink, shrank, have shrunk.

Spring, sprang, have sprung.

Ring, rang, have rung.

Using the present tense of these verbs is easy. It is the simple past tense that gives some writers trouble. Very often I see sentences like:

I sprung up from the couch and ran to look out the window.

The phone rung ten times.

The ship sunk in just a few minutes.

The clothes shrunk in the dryer.

No, no, no. The verb with “i” in it is for the present or future tense. For the simple past, you want the verb with an “a” in it. The verb with “u” is the one you want to use with an auxiliary verb like “to have.”

Here are some examples of each tense:

Present or future tense

The ship will sink if it hits an iceberg.  I sink like a rock when I try to swim.

Woolen clothes shrink in the dryer.  They will shrink faster if the dryer is on a hot setting.

The dog will spring into action at his owner’s signal. He springs quite high in the air when he wants to go play.

The phone rings all day long. It will ring until you pick it up or the caller gives up.

Simple past tense

The ship sank when it hit an iceberg.  I sank like a rock when I tried to swim.

The woolen clothes shrank in the dryer.  They shrank fast on the hot setting.

The dog sprang into action at his owner’s signal. He sprang quite high in the air because he wanted to go play.

The phone rang all day long. It rang until I picked it up.

Past tenses using auxiliary verbs

The ship has sunk because it hit an iceberg.  I have sunk like a rock each time I tried to swim.

My woolen clothes have shrunk in the dryer.  My self-esteem has shrunk every time I made that mistake.

The dog has sprung into action at his owner’s signal. He has sprung quite high in the air when he wanted to go play.

The phone has rung all day long. It has rung until I picked it up or the caller gave up.

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I Can’t Bear It

In a recent novel I read, I was shocked by the language. No, it wasn’t that it was lewd, but I suppose it could have been misinterpreted that way with bare and ball. Within a short space, the author had misused words that sound similar but were very different in meaning.

bear/bare

ball/bawl

scald/scold

Let’s start with bear/bare. 

“Bear” could refer to a huge furry animal, but if he had no fur, he would be bare. So we have bear, the animal, and bare, no hair or fur. “Bare” could also mean not clothed.

Another meaning for “bear” could be to endure something. If something awful happens and you can’t endure it, you might say, “I can’t bear it.” It gives the impression of a weight to endure, whether physical or mental.

Then we have ball/bawl.

A ball could be a round, bouncy toy for children, or a football, soccer ball, volleyball, or any other game ball.

A ball could also refer to a formal dance event. You may remember that Cinderella went to one and danced with the prince.

Bawl is a loud crying sound. Some people say young children bawl, but actually I think of cattle when they call out loudly.

Scald/scold

This was obviously just a lack of spelling knowledge. The author meant to say “scald” as in “hot,” thought “o” says “aw,” and spelled it “scold.”

I’ll give examples of the kind of misuse I saw:

The sun was baring down.

…scream and ball into your face…

…a car seat was scolding (from the sun)

He put his head on the scolding headrest.

He heard her ball at the kids.

These examples first shocked me. Then I laughed. Then I nearly cried.

I can’t bear this kind of writing. At a bare minimum an author should know how to spell. I should scold him for not getting a copy-editor. Maybe he should go make a cup of tea and think about his writing, but first make sure he doesn’t scald himself on the hot water.

Instead of leaving the reader bawling her eyes out, he should maybe go play ball instead of writing.

Of course, I’m just kidding. All this guy had to do was to hire a copy-editor and he wouldn’t have made so many readers unhappy (and ruined an otherwise good book).