Guest Bloggers

Guest Blogger Rob Koslowsky explains future verbage

Guest Blogger Rob Koslowsky writes about how . . . Mathematicians Address Verb(al) Decay Regular verbs feature a past tense that ends in “ed.” Words like brush or bump become brushed and bumped in the past tense. But what do you do with those irregular verbs that don’t follow such an easy rule? Arise becomes arose (past simple) or arisen (past participle) while find becomes found in both cases of past tense. English students need not despair. Two mathematicians recently collaborated and uncovered the fact that irregular verbs will convert to a regular form. It just takes time. The principle of atomic half-life is invoked. Erez Lieberman and Jean-Baptiste Michel’s formula suggests that the more popular the verb the longer the time it takes to be reduced to a regular form in its past tense. For example, have will become haved instead of had—in 38,800 years—and hold will become holded…