Verbs: -ed Endings

Verbs: -ed Endings

Past Tense and Past Participle Forms

With regular verbs, both the past tense form and the past participle end in -ed. This ending can cause writers trouble, since in speech the ending is often dropped — particularly when it blends into the next sound.

	Faulty	They wash two baskets of laundry last night.
	Revised	They washed two baskets of laundry last night.

Standard English requires the -ed ending in the following instances.

1.	To form the past tense of a regular verb

	Faulty	He ask to leave early.
	Revised	He asked to leave early.

2.	To form the past participle of a regular verb for use with the auxiliaries has, have, or had in the active voice or with forms of be (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been) in the passive voice Active

	Faulty	She has work there for a long time.
	Revised	She has worked there for a long time.

Passive

	Faulty	The work will be finish tomorrow.
	Revised	The work will be finished tomorrow.

3.	To form a past participle for use as an adjective

	Faulty	Put in some chop meat.
	Revised	Put in some chopped meat.

Note:

The following -ed forms are used with to be or get: concerned, confused, depressed, divorced, embarrassed, married, prejudiced, satisfied, scared, supposed to, surprised, used to, worried.

Do not confuse the past tense and past participle forms of irregular verbs. A past tense form occurs alone as a complete verb, and a past participle form must be used with a have or be auxiliary.

	Faulty	He drunk too much last night.
	Revised	He drank too much last night.
	Faulty	She done her best.
	Revised	She did her best.