Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Criminal Sentence 467: Show Me the Past Participle

From a book I read:

"But the photos the lieutenant had showed him ... were troubling."

Had showed? Now that's troubling!

Often, the past-tense verb and the past participle are the same, as in "heard": "I heard the bell"/"I have heard the bell." Other times, they're different, as in "ate" and "eaten."

The past tense of "to show" is "showed." The past participle is "shown."
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 15, 2013 at 4:12 PM

    Sorry, but the verb "show" has two past participle forms: "shown" and "showed".

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Sentence SleuthFebruary 19, 2013 at 2:50 PM

    OK, Anon, you may be right but "shown" is definitely more common!

    ReplyDelete

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