What do you say when...THE GREAT DIVE GRAMMER THREAD

[dbulmer]

InkyPoo,
If you are suggesting that I am a linguistic chauvinist then I am guilty as charged. Dove I can just about tolerate but when the colonials start using words such as soccer for football :boom:
I get indignant - I can even accept the b word (buddy ) but ....

I could go on, as most Brits do , but to spare you a few yawns I'll leave it at that =-)

 

[padudle]

No big deal but but I've seen and heard the verb "to dive" used in a number of odd ways so I looked it up. The past tense of dive is "dove" or "dived" both are correct but the past participle of dive is "dived".

For example, "I dove yesterday" but "I have dived Puerto Vallarta".

This is according to Webster's 20th Century Unabridged

 

[Babelfish]

Picked this one up from www.oed.com...

Blame it on the Canadians for coming up with "dove" :beret:

"1857 Canad. Jrnl. Industry Sci. & Art II. Sept. 351 In England when a swimmer makes his first leap, head foremost, into the water he is said to dive, and is spoken of as having dived... Not so however, is it with the modern refinements of our Canadian English. In referring to such a feat here, it would be said, not that he dived, but that he dove."

 

[TRIG]

Tomatoes, tamotoes ( SP ) - As long as the idea or concept
is communicated, mission accomplished!

TRIG

 

[Babelfish]

TRIG once bubbled...
Tomatoes, tamotoes ( SP ) - As long as the idea or concept
is communicated, mission accomplished!

TRIG

Or as Dan Quayle would have it:

Potatoe, Patatoe...

ut:

 

[dutch-scuba-kid]

I've been breaking my head over this one... the question which has kept mankind busy for thousands of years.

Isn't diving an irregular verb? hehehe
shouldn't it be:
Dive Dove Diven? hahahaha
In stead of:
Dive, Dived, Dived.

The irregular way just sounds so much better. :54:
Anyway, silly thread.

 

[simbrooks]

Too much time on your hands, you should be out doing it however you say it!

 

[Diver0001]

I've been breaking my head over this one... the question which has kept mankind busy for thousands of years.

Isn't diving an irregular verb? hehehe
shouldn't it be:
Dive Dove Diven? hahahaha
In stead of:
Dive, Dived, Dived.

The irregular way just sounds so much better. :54:
Anyway, silly thread.

"Dove" and "Dived" are both acceptable forms. There seems to be a regional perference for one form or the other. The reason that there are two forms seems to have to do with the general trend in the English language over the last 800 odd years of verbs changing from strong to weak forms. In this case you have one of the few exceptions that seems to have changed from weak to strong form. "Dived" is therefore an older version of the word and "Dove" the more recent version. Eventually it will settle out (maybe not in our lifetime) but what you're seeing is a snapshot in the process of language evolution.

R..

 

[AzAtty]

Actually, "diving" is the gerund of the verb, so "diving" cannot be an irregular verb. "Dive" is a different story. Do I sound like a grammar teacher yet?

English has a whole mess of irregular verbs. That's what happens when you mash together a bunch of root languages and blend it on an island for a millenium or so while said island changes hands frequently.

 

[simbrooks]

Actually, "diving" is the gerund of the verb, so "diving" cannot be an irregular verb. "Dive" is a different story. Do I sound like a grammar teacher yet?

English has a whole mess of irregular verbs. That's what happens when you mash together a bunch of root languages and blend it on an island for a millenium or so while said island changes hands frequently.

Said island then spreads their way over many countries and continents, in form of colonies and some of those colonies revolt and then butcher the language themselves and still call it English. I enjoy having to spell check over here, two years after coming over and it still picks up the "u"s that are included in my spelling and discards them, as well as many other terms. Its been quite a development in this language!!