A Word, Please: Agonizing over verbs and dictionary gaslighting

The dictionary is gaslighting me. I know I sound crazy, but that’s just proof of gaslighting, right?

Let me explain.

For years I’ve been telling people that they never have to agonize over whether to use “swam” or “swum,” “laid” or “lain,” “drank” or “drunk,” or “dreamed” or “dreamt” because the answers are in the dictionary. But only if you know how to find them.

Most dictionaries contain instructions on how to use the dictionary. Of course, no one ever reads this section because they think they already know how to use a dictionary: Look up the word you want. Ignore those weird little schwas and other stuff after the word. Read its definition. Then continue to wonder what mysterious corner of the universe contains the answers to the “laid” vs. “lain” mystery.

Not so fast, I say.

Turn to the front of a physical dictionary or look under the “Help” section of an online dictionary, and you’ll find information about “inflected forms.” That term means the different forms of a word for different situations, like past tense. “Thought,” for example, is an inflected form of “think.”

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary tells you inflected forms “are covered explicitly or by implication at the main entry for the base form. These are the plurals of nouns, the principal parts of verbs (the past tense, the past participle when it differs from the past tense, and the present participle), and the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives and adverbs. In general, it may be said that when these inflected forms are created in a manner considered regular in English (as by adding -s or -es to nouns, -ed and -ing to verbs, and -er and -est to adjectives and adverbs) and when it seems that there is nothing about the formation likely to give the dictionary user doubts, the inflected form is not shown in order to save space.”

Catch that?

For regular verbs, past forms are not shown. So an irregular verb like “swim” will have after it “swam,” indicating the simple past tense, then “swum,” the past participle. But a regular verb like “walk,” which takes -ed for both its past tense forms, doesn’t mention it. The dictionary tells you this “by implication” — if nothing’s there, you know to use -ed.

Over the years, I’ve noticed this multiple times. When I look up regular verbs like “walk,” there are no past tense forms listed. At least, there weren’t. But suddenly, in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, under “walk” it says “walked.” After “talk” it says “talked.” After “call” it says “called.” After “realize” it says “realized.” Those weren’t there before.

That’s all the evidence I need to prove that Merriam’s is trying to drive me crazy by making me think I’m crazy. But I am not a crackpot.

Confronted with this puzzling information, I did what any former reporter who lacked the chops to cut it as a long-term reporter would do: I contacted the source through social media asking what’s up with that? I got no answer and, true to my didn’t-cut-it-as-a-long-term-reporter skills, I gave up.

But Merriam made one fatal error. They left that stuff in the Help section about inflected forms of regular verbs being covered “by implication” — evidence of a hasty cover-up of their gaslighting campaign. Busted.

What does all this mean for you? Two things.

First, you can easily find out that the simple past tense of “swim” is “swam,” and the past participle (the one that goes after a form of “have”) is “swum.” “Laid” is the past tense and past participle of the transitive verb “lay,” while “lain” is the past participle of the intransitive verb “lie.” It’s correct to say “yesterday he drank” but “in the past he has drunk.” Also, “dreamed” is correct but “dreamt” is also an option.

And second, your humble grammar columnist is not crazy (in any way relevant to this column).

— June Casagrande is the author of “The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.