Speak good English: Regular, Irregular verbs

 In our discussions on regular and irregular verbs, we have seen that those irregular verbs whose past tense and past participle forms are similar in pronunciation pose a great difficulty to users of the English language.

We have said that while we don’t have any difficulty writing:

She bought a new dress yesterday.

and

She had bought the dress before we met her at the mall.

some of us have great difficulty in writing:

The choir sang the song at the beginning of the service.

and

The choir had sung that song at the request of the visiting Man of God.

The difficulty arises from the fact that the past tense of sing, which is sang, is pronounced the same way as the past participle of sing, which is sung.

If care is not taken, you may end up writing the past tense sang for the past participle sung, which is incorrect.

If you write:

The choir had sang that song at the request of the visiting Ma