Dive is an irregular verb.... Irregular? I think that's right. It has the past tense dove and the past tense dived. Not one is better than the other, but they have different uses. Here they are, as close as I can reason:
dove: past perfect--I think perfect--as in:
In the past, the dove dove.
dived: past progressive, as in:
In the past, the dove would have dived, will have dived.
It flows a little better. Dive is a terrible word.
6 comments:
Yes, but what about when "dived" is used as past perfect? i.e. "he dived into the pool"? How does that fit? Huh?
I think to say "he dived into the pool" would be inaccurate, possibly even incorrect.
And yet, I've seen it used just that way many a time in books.
That doesn't make me wrong. Some people aren't quite as wise as some other people.
As long as the point gets across, does it matter if it's past indefinite, or present paraffin, or future funkadelic? Guy is out of pool. Guy dived/dove/doved/was diving/divered/commenced the dive protocol/performed a triple corkscrew parallelo-grammo-slamma-ramma-lama-ding-dong into the pool. Guy is now in pool.
I'd rather know what's the significance of the guy putting himself into the pool, Mr. Luckless. If a painter spends so much time trying to determine the "proper" color to use, he'll never paint the painting of the bowl of apples, the apples will rot, and he will be sad. Don't let the apples rot, Mr. Luckless, it will make you sad, mark my words.
Past paraffin? triple corkscrew parallelo-grammo-slamma-ramma-lama-ding-dong?
Now who's had too much caffeine. Watch out, Whit. I think John may give you a run for your money.
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