ridden or rode?

The cat is correct.

Don't think so. I believe "You could have ridden" is the correct construction for a conditional past perfect. "Rode" is simple past tense: "You rode out the storm."

caw

alleycat said:

I think . . .

Rode is simple, and ridden is past perfect tense (using "had").

I rode into town.

I had ridden into town.


You could have rode out the storm.

You had ridden out the storm.

I think . . . I never claim to be a grammar expert.

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"Rode" is the simple past form of 'to ride'. "Ridden" is the past participle of 'to ride'.

As a quick and dirty rule, use the past participle instead of the simple past form whenever you have auxiliary verbs, e.g.:

1) For forming the passive: The horse was ridden.
2) For forming the past perfect: I had ridden the horse.
3) With modal auxiliaries: I could have ridden a horse, I should have ridden a donkey, but from these bruises I must have ridden a rhinoceros.

blacbird said:

Don't think so. I believe "You could have ridden" is the correct construction for a conditional past perfect. "Rode" is simple past tense: "You rode out the storm."

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The cat and the giraffe are incorrect this time. The bird is right. Who 'even' knows "what" the 'heck' the "trousers" said?

Chase said:

Who 'even' knows "what" the 'heck' the "trousers" said?

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Something tells me I am being mocked, though I can't pinpoint exactly how...

But in all seriousness, do you not use double quotes when directly quoting a text and single quotes to differentiate an infinitive-verb-form functioning as the citation-form of a verb from an infinitive-verb-form functioning as the main verb of an infinitive clause? It seems perfectly logical to me to do so...

I love it when a good grammar fight breaks out . . .

;-)

Kitty Pryde said:

my thread is giving me a headache! oy!

But seriously, "could have ridden" is making more sense to me. Because I would say, "I eat", "I ate", "I could have eaten", which is a verb that I'm much more familiar with. And I would never say "I could have ate".

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That is correct. The rule is quite simple for the past tense -- in the past tense, when you use an auxiliary verb (like 'had', 'was', 'could have' etc) always use the past participle form, and always use the simple past form when not using auxiliary verbs.

Yes, it's "could have ridden." Same participle no matter what auxiliary verb forms are used. "He had ridden a horse" and "He could have ridden a horse" are both correct.

Think of a more familiar strong verb, and the difference will be apparent immediately:

"I ate a horse."

"I had eaten a horse."

"I could have eaten a horse." Obviously, it's not "I could have ate a horse."

Mr. Chuckletrousers said:

But in all seriousness, do you not use double quotes when directly quoting a text and single quotes to differentiate an infinitive-verb-form functioning as the citation-form of a verb from an infinitive-verb-form functioning as the main verb of an infinitive clause? It seems perfectly logical to me to do so...

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I'm certain some grammar tome can be dusted off to support such logic. I recall older versions of The Chicago Manual of Style allow single quotation marks mixed with double within fields of linquistics and philosophy.

Other major guides for U.S. publications indicate single quotation are only for quotes within quotes.

Chase said:

Other major guides for U.S. publications indicate single quotation are only for quotes within quotes.

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Yeah, but people who say that are just a bunch of grammar nazis...

Us groovy grammar hippies think you should be able to use quotation marks however you feel like, man! Yeah, Free Punctuation! Wooo!

Chase said:

The cat and the giraffe are incorrect this time.

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Oops! Read alleycat's post too fast. Bad giraffe!

IceCreamEmpress said:

Obviously, it's not "I could have ate a horse."

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Well, where I grew up, it was "I could have done ate a horse."

caw

Shouldn't that be "I could have done ate me a horse"?

2Wheels said:

Shouldn't that be "I could have done ate me a horse"?

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Naw. Only them slobs down the road woulda said something like that.

caw

Mr. Chuckletrousers said:

That is correct. The rule is quite simple for the past tense -- in the past tense, when you use an auxiliary verb (like 'had', 'was', 'could have' etc) always use the past participle form, and always use the simple past form when not using auxiliary verbs.

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Yep, yep. Another easy way to think of it is simply to remember verbs as threesomes:

ride, rode, ridden
hide, hid, hidden
eat, ate, eaten
swim, swam, swum
sing, sang, sung
drink, drank, drunk
speak, spoke, spoken
etc.

Then just note this fact: #1 of the threesome is the present tense; #2 is the simple past; #3 goes with auxiliaries.

The only reason people get confused about which one to use with auxiliaries is that for many English verbs (generally the ones with a past tense in -ed), #2 and #3 are the same:
lead, led, led
love, loved, loved
talk, talked, talked
etc.

So the only trick is remembering which verbs do NOT have the same form in both #2 and #3. That's where dictionaries can come in handy (who knew the #3 for "strive" was "striven"?!? Although actually that verb has come to have two forms: strive, strove, striven or strive, strived, strived could probably both be considered correct.) But if you already know they're not the same (e.g. you know the words rode and ridden both exist), then you know you have to use #3 with auxiliaries.