Grammar Tip: Have GONE, Not Have WENT
Contributor
Written by
Maria Murnane
October 2014
Contributor
Written by
Maria Murnane
October 2014

The other day my mom, from whom I inherited my attention to grammar, sent me an email with a subject line that said "THIS CAN'T POSSIBLY BE RIGHT, RIGHT?" 

I clicked to open the attachment, which was a photograph of a newspaper article about a sports team. The article said that "the team had sort of went down the drain over the season." Wow. I can't believe grammar that bad made it to publication in a major newspaper, but that's another story. 

Here's how the verb "to go" works:

 

PRESENT TENSE: I go to the store.

PAST TENSE: I went to the store.

PRESENT PERFECT TENSE: I have gone to the store.

PAST PERFECT TENSE: I had gone to the store.

 

Under no circumstances is it appropriate to say "I have went to the store" or "I had went to the store." Unfortunately, however, I'm starting to hear this usage more and more, just as I often hear "I" used when "me" is correct. (Click here to read my blog post on the difference between "I" vs "me.")

 

This may seem like a minor error, and you may be wondering why I'm so hung up on grammar, but I'm not the only person who cares about it. (My mom does too! Ha.) The truth is that to a trained ear/eye even small errors jump out and overshadow everything else, and you don't want that to happen. In last week's post, I gave an example of the impact a minor error can have. Whether it's your manuscript, your author bio, your book description, or any of your other marketing materials, it's important to keep them free of errors so your readers can focus on the most important thing: the content.

-Maria

Maria Murnane is the best-selling author of the romantic comedies Perfect on Paper, It's a Waverly Life, Honey on Your Mind, Chocolate for Two, Cassidy Lane, and Katwalk. She also provides consulting services to aspiring and published authors. Learn more at www.mariamurnane.com.

 

This blog post originally appeared on CreateSpace.com. Reprinted with permission. © 2014 CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.

 

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Comments
  • Jo Anne Valentine Simson

    Maria, I'm afraid the substitute of nominative for objective case in pronouns comes from an effort to avoid the "hick-speech" such as "Me and him went to the store." So folks use the nominative case of the pronoun whenever it's combined with another noun or pronoun. All they have to do is figure out what would sound right if the other object weren't there.

  • Jo Anne Valentine Simson

    Thank you! My mother, too, was an English major and a strict grammarian! It really does grate on my ears (and eyes) when I hear (and see) such sloppy grammar. And spelling errors have begun jumping out at me from online news sources and blogs. Since I was never a very good speller, I'm amazed that a lot of folks publishing on highly read sites are even worse spellers than I am. A lot of that problem comes from homonyms (e.g., cite and site), but writers really should look up the spelling of any questionable word before it gets onto the internet in perpetuity.

  • Valerie J. Brooks

    I've been hearing young people say, "I seen that." Along with other ugly misuses such as, "I've went to the store." I correct where I can, but it seems to make no difference.

  • Suzanne Arthur

    Yes. To which the appropriate response would be, "see you and Steve do what?"

  • Maria Murnane

    What drives me NUTS is when people say things like "Would you like to come over to see Steve and I?" Now THAT is everywhere!

  • Suzanne Arthur

    PS I should tell you, though, I accepted the invitation anyway and had a fine time :)

  • Suzanne Arthur

    Actually, I guess there's nothing wrong with that. It was..."me and Steve would like to have you over..." Now, that grates! lol!

  • Suzanne Arthur

    I totally get it. How about, "I and Steve would like to have you over for dinner?"

  • Maria Murnane

    I hear "had WENT' from educated people all the time--to me it's as grating as when people say things like "Myself and the team are having a meeting." UGH

  • Suzanne Arthur

    A friend texted me last week, "we have drank the Koolaid." I was going to let it pass, but a second later, she texted, "have drunk?" I think when it comes to drink/drank/drunk there is understandable confusion. But I'd hope that people would know the to go verb by now!

  • Maria Murnane

    @Suzanne hahahaha that is hilarious :)

  • Suzanne Arthur

    This kind of thing drives me nuts. But I now live in a part of the country where you hear things like, "she married herself a Canadian," so I just sigh and get on with my business...