Delightfully Irregular Verbs

As language maven Richard Lederer has shown (or is it showed?) in his poem "Tense Times With Verbs," irregular verbs in English are delightfully and sometimes maddeningly unpredictable:

Today we speak, but first we spoke;
Some faucets leak, but never loke.
Today we write, but first we wrote;
We bite our tongues, but never bote.

Each day I teach, for years I taught,
And preachers preach, but never praught.
This tale I tell, this tale I told;
I smell the flowers, but never smold.

If knights still slay, as once they slew,
Then do we play, as once we plew?
If I still do as once I did,
Then do cows moo, as they once mid? . . .
(Crazy English, Pocket Books, 1990)

Although fewer than 200 English verbs are classified as irregular (or "strong"), these include some of the most common words in the language--beginning with the three "primary verbs," be, have, and do. Many of the irregulars have been with us a long, long time--since Old English, when word endings (or inflections) played a more important role than they do today.

What's remarkable is that by the age of five most native speakers of English have mastered the irregulars--or at least the majority of them. (Just about everyone, it seems, remains baffled by lay and lie.)

For a list of the most common irregular verbs, see our pages on the Principal Parts. And after you've taken the time to read our introduction to Irregular Verbs, be sure to let us know if you have any comments or questions.