Take, took, taken. An irregular verb in its main, past tense, and past participle forms.
Taken. See take.
Taught. See teach.
Teach, taught, taught. An irregular verb in its main, past tense, and past participle forms.
Tear, tore, torn. An irregular verb in its main, past tense, and past participle forms.
Tell, told, told. An irregular verb in its main, past tense, and past participle forms.
Tense. Verbs vary in form to indicate time of action or condition. The changed forms and time relationships they suggest are called “tenses.”
There are twelve tenses, listed below with examples. It is useful to recognize the variety of tenses available and how they are used to convey nuances of time and other aspects of the actions or conditions that verbs can present.
Present tense is the normal, everyday tense that indicates things happening more or less now: “The dog snores, the owner complains, and the kids wake up.” This verb form can also be used for continuing or persistent actions or conditions: “Life is long.” In some circumstances, when other words are used to clarify an expected action in the future, the simple present performs a future function: “Tomorrow the traveler comes home.”
Verbs that depict events or situations in the future are usually in the future tense: “The day’s snoring will irritate the owner and will wake up the kids.” Note in present tense (above) that enough qualifying words in a sentence that specify an action in the future can allow the use of the present tense for future actions or conditions.
Actions or conditions cast directly in and limited to the past use the past tense: “The dog snored, the owner complained, and the kids woke up.”
Formed with the auxiliary verb “have” (or “has”) and the past tense form of a verb, the present perfect merges the two tenses to depict actions or conditions begun in the past but extending into the present or not completed at a specific time: “The dog has snored for years, and the kids have usually gotten up every night as a result.”
By joining the past tense form of verbs with “will have,” the future perfect depicts things that will end at a definite moment in the future: “The dog will have snored for ten years by August, but the kids will have been bothered only for the last two years in the new house where the dog sleeps in the hall.”
Combining “had” with the past tense form of a verb, the past perfect conveys a sense of action or condition ended at a specific moment in the past, often before some other event in the past: “The dog had snored that night, but the kids did not wake up.”
This tense combines the present participle (“ing” form) with the present tense of “be” (“is” or “are”) to indicate continuing actions or conditions: “The dog is snoring again tonight, and the kids are complaining to the owner.” Unlike the present tense, the present progressive depicts an action that is actually occurring at the moment, while the present refers to repeated or habitual current activities or situations: “The dog is snoring right now, but the owner complains every night.” Like the present tense, the present progressive can perform a future function if a sentence contains enough qualifying words to make clear the future setting of the event: “The dog is going to snore tomorrow night, the owner is sure.”
Actions or conditions that continue in the future use the future progressive tense, which combines “will be” with the present participle (“ing” form): “The dog will be snoring for years to come, and the kids will be getting used to it.”
By linking the past forms of “be” (“was” or “were”) with the present participle “ing” form), the past progressive conveys things that continued to happen in the past but have ended: “The dog was snoring in the summer, but stopped in the fall.”
To depict things that continue from the past into the present ör beyond, the present perfect progressive is used. It combines the auxiliaries “has” or “have” and “been” (the past participle of “be”) with the present participle (“ing” form): “the dog has been snoring for far too long.”
Combining “will have been” with the present participle (“ing” form), the future perfect progressive suggests actions or conditions that will end at or by a definite moment in the future: “The dog will have been snoring for ten years in August.”
The past perfect progressive tense joins “had been” with the present participle (“ing” form) to portray things that continue in the past and that start before some other specific time, event, or situation: “The dog had been snoring for ten years before it was cured of it.”
Than, then. “Than” is a conjunction that links words or phrases being compared: “Smith is taller than Brown is.” See comparison. Do not confuse “than” with “then,” an adverb that modifies verbs and suggests actions or conditions following one after the other: “The nurse weighed the patient, then measured her height.” See modifier.
That, which. “That” normally is the relative pronoun introducing a restrictive (or independent) clause, while “which” does the same for nonrestrictive (dependent) clauses. Restrictive clauses add considerable information to a sentence that is essential for its meaning and are not set off by commas. Nonrestrictive clauses add ancillary or less than essential ideas to a sentence and show this supplementary status by being surrounded by commas.
Their, there, they’re. These three homonyms (words that sound alike but are spelled differently) are frequently confused and misused. They are quite different parts of speech, with very different meanings and functions.
THEIR. A possessive pronoun, “their” modifies nouns and indicates ownership of something: “The parrots take their time eating the fruit.” See modifier and pronoun.
THERE. “There” is an adverb suggesting some degree of remoteness: “The boat is anchored over there.” With linking verbs (“be”) “there” forms the expletive: “There were nine boats anchored at the shore.”
THEY’RE. This contraction joins “they” and “are”: “They’re going to crash into the pier!”
Theirselves. An incorrect or colloquial form of “themselves,” the proper third-person plural of the reflexive pronoun. Never use “theirselves” outside fiction or reports on dialect.
Them. “Them” is the correct objective case form of “they”: “The guard saw them.” But it is not, and should never be used as, a demonstrative pronoun. WRONG: “I saw them things.” RIGHT: “I saw those things.” See pronoun.
There. See their.
Therefore. See coordinating conjunction and interjection.
They, them, their. “They” is the third-person plural pronoun and has an objective case form of “them” and a possessive case form of “their.”
They’re. See their.
Think, thought, thought. An irregular verb in its main, past tense, and past participle forms.
Thirdly. There is no reason to add “ly” to this or other ordinal numbers, especially when they are used to list things.
Though. See subordinating conjunction and although (as it is usually spelled).
Thought. See think.
Threw. See throw.
Through. Preposition governing the objective case: “The current jolted through him.”
Throw, threw, thrown. An irregular verb in its main, past tense, and past participle forms.
Thrown. See throw.
Thus. See subordinating conjunction.
Title. A title is a name given to a person as a sign of distinction. Creative works can also bear titles.
Designations of jobs, status, marital condition, inheritance or nobility, academic achievement, and so on constitute a whole range of personal titles: “Dr., senator, Mrs., count, Ph.D., officer.” Depending on how they are used in sentences and with names, titles have different punctuation or capitalization.
Titles immediately associated with a name are usually capitalized and frequently abbreviated: “Rev. Jones sat next to Senator Bradley and across the table from Mrs. Schneider, Ph.D.” When most of these titles appear without a specific name, they are usually not capitalized and never abbreviated: “The reverend sat next to the senator and across the table from my wife, who holds a doctorate.” “Ph.D.” is an exception to this rule, appearing sometimes by itself and capitalized: “Smith has a Ph.D.” In some very formal styles this usage is considered unacceptable. Titles with last names only are usually spelled out in full, while those with more than a last name can be abbreviated: “We refer to Prof. Judith Ginsberg and Prof. Paul LeClaire.” See abbreviation.
Titles that follow a name are set off from it and following words by commas: “let me introduce Chris Schneider, Ph.D.”
Creative works made by people have names that are treated differently depending on the length, longevity, seriousness, and type of work. All these criteria are somewhat subjective, but the rules that are outlined here can be applied consistently.
BOOKS. Titles of books are underlined (or in italics), and words in the titles are capitalized except for conjunctions and prepositions that don’t begin the title: War and Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. See capitalization.
BROADCAST PROGRAMS, DANCES, MOVIES, MUSICAL WORKS, PLAYS, POEMS, PAINTINGS, AND SCULPTURE. Longer dance, musical, and poetic works, along with these other artistic or entertainment categories, are treated like book titles: The Simpsons, The Nutcracker Suite, Dances with Wolves, The Goldberg Variations, The Crucible, the Aeneid, View over Delft, Laocoon.
JOURNALS, MAGAZINES, NEWSPAPERS, AND PAMPHLETS. All these things are treated like book titles: Studies in Obscurity, Prevention, the New York Times.
VEHICLES. Specific names of individual books, planes, trains, buses, cars, spacecraft, and so on can be treated like book titles, but not model names: Enola Gay, Palmetto, Silver Bullet, Red Baron, Apollo IV, Titanic. But note: “The singer drove an Accord.”
Shorter written works—songs, short poems, stories, articles, chapters, and the like—are capitalized in the same way book titles are, but they are set off in quotation marks rather than being underlined or italicized: “Every Move You Make,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “The End of History,” “The Middle Years.”
Titles set off in quotes have commas and periods within the quotes if that punctuation ends a clause or the sentence: “I was singing, ‘Every Move You Make.’ ” If the title itself ends with a puncutation mark (exclamation point or question mark), then no punctuation follows the quotes that end the title, even at the end of a sentence: “The actor recited ‘A Call to Arms!’ ” If the sentence ends with a question mark or exclamation point that is not part of the title, that punctuation goes outside the quotes: “Were you singing ‘Every Move You Make’?” Colons, semicolons, and parentheses that are not parts of titles go outside quotes surrounding titles: “The actor recited ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ that was followed by ‘Memory’ (a major Russian work); finally came ‘The Raven’: Did you hear all that?”
To, too, two. Don’t confuse these words that sound alike but are spelled differently (homonyms) and have different meanings.
TO The preposition “to” suggests motion toward or attribution to something: “I went to Denver and gave a speech to an association.” “To” also appears in verb infinitives: “To err is human.”
TOO. “Too” is an adverb that intensifies words or adds things: “That is too dark for this room. It is big, too.” See intensifier.
TWO. The number “two” (2) is always just that: “Look, two eagles. That is too exciting not to report to the rest of the group.”
Told. See tell.
Tone. The spirit of what is said, its attitude, is called “tone.” Severe, playful, ironic, intense, wheedling, ingratiating—there is no real limit to tone nor any clear guidance about where it is appropriate. One can seek consistency of tone, use abrupt tone shifts to make a point, or intentionally vary tone throughout a statement for all sorts of purposes. The careful writer stays aware of tone and how it is used, how it might be received by different audiences, and how expectations of tone can be manipulated. See, for example, style, emphasis, irony, rhetoric, and colloquial.
Too. See to.
Took. See take.
Torn. See tear.
Toward. Preposition governing the objective case: “The infant crawled toward the door.” Do not spell with an “s.” WRONG: “Move towards the rear, please.”
Transitive. Verbs that transmit or convey their action to other words (objects or indirect objects) are said to be “transitive”: “The camper chopped wood.” Some verbs have no objects and are used intransitively: “The camper chopped.” Other verbs can only be used as intransitives’. “The guest arrived.” See voice and reflexive pronoun.
Two. See to.
Typeface. Writers were once limited to typewriters that produced only one shape of letter on paper. Now there are various machines that produce differently shaped letters, which are said to be in “typefaces.” Typefaces (fonts) do not affect words in any way; they do not cause any variation in their use or the grammatical rules that govern them. But careful writers will observe the same principles of parallelism, consistency, and restraint that they apply to other aspects of writing when they have the opportunity to use typefaces in documents. (The emphatic and defining force of typefaces and variations among them is lost if too many faces appear in one document, if incompatible faces are put together on the same page just because they are available to use and not because they have a purpose, or if bad choices are made among possible faces.
If you can use many typefaces, be careful not to abuse that freedom and leave your reader’s eyes weary. See also italics, bold type, and emphasis.