EXERCISE 4. IN EACH SENTENCE, UNDERLINE THE CORRECT FORM OF THE VERB.

14. In the barn (was, were) two ancient tractors still in good running order.

Troublesome Verb Pairs

Some verb pairs cause more than their share of problems. Learn the correct use of each

verb in the following pairs.

Lie, Lay

First, study the forms of these tricky verbs.

PRESENT

PRESENT PARTICIPLE

PAST

PAST PARTICIPLE

lie (“rest,” “recline”) lying lay lain

lay (“put” or “set down”) laying laid laid

Now notice these correct forms:

Angela is lying down. She lay down an hour ago. She has lain on the couch

without moving.

Mr. Winters is laying the tile. He laid most of the tile yesterday.

He has laid tile for a number of builders.

Sit, Set

sit (“occupy a chair”) sitting sat sat

set (“place,” “put in order”) setting set set

Here are examples of the correct forms:

My grandmother is sitting on the front porch. She sat in her favorite rocker.

She has sat in that chair many times.

The twins are setting the table. They set it this morning, too.

They have set it for every meal this week.

Bring, Take

To bring usually calls for motion toward the speaker. To take usually calls for motion

away from the speaker. The following sentences use these verbs correctly:

When you come home from school today, please bring me the evening paper.

Please take this overdue book to the library.

Imply, Infer

You may hear these words used interchangeably. They should not be. To imply is to sug-

gest. To infer is to draw a conclusion or to guess. The examples below show correct usage:

His presence implied agreement with the decision.

I inferred from his presence that he agreed.

Affect, Effect

This pair of easily confused words could very well get top honors as the most trouble-

some. Not only are both words verbs—they also are nouns.

Affect as a verb means to influence, have an effect on. Effect as a verb means to accom-

plish or bring about. Effect is sometimes mistakenly used when affect should be. Look at

the examples carefully.

Too much television watching affected Skye’s grades.

Increased study time in the evening effected an improvement in Skye’s

grades.

Most of the time you will use affect as the verb.

Even though this lesson focuses on verbs, we will touch on the noun confusion here as

well. You may often see affect used when effect is meant. An effect is a consequence or re-

sult of something. Affect is a more specialized term from psychology that refers to feelings

or emotions as opposed to thoughts and actions. If it does crop up in ordinary conversation

or writing, most often it is used in connection with an absence of emotion. Consider the

following:

The movie had a good effect on Lee’s bad mood.

Her affect was so blunted, we could not make her laugh.

Do not worry too much about affect as a noun. Only rarely, if ever, will you use it. Do,

however, learn the distinction between the verbs affect and effect. Not doing so will surely

affect (NOT effect) your grade.