“I remember with fondness all those bridges crossed together with my friends.”Ĭrossed: adjective (in this case, a verb used in past tense as a description of bridges) First, a similar sentence – no smoke and mirrors, but another example: I might hear howls of disapproval, but let’s examine theįacts. “I remembered with fondness all those times passed together with my friends.” Meaning “gone by in time elapsed done with over.” “Past”, when used as an adjective describes history, So *past* is not an adverb, but an adjective – it describes a noun. *Times* is not a verb here (*remember* is). What does it mean? *Past* is describing *times*.
What about time? Time seems to be the nastiest of all. So the verb “pass” is being used to describe the ball by what has happened to it – With substitution: He examined the “kicked” ball (the ball that had been kicked). If you are not, are you describing something that has been passed?Ĭan’t tell? Substitute “kicked” – it changes the meaning, but makes things far more obvious.Įxample: He examined the past/passed ball. *running* past, *walking* past, *marching* past, etc. If you are talking about “passed”, for movement, then you need to ask yourself: (Even if you are talking about moving from one *time* to another) You need to ask yourself some questions about your sentence.Īre you talking about describing something from the past: the time before the present?Īre you using “passed”, which is for “movement” from one place to the next? It’s still easy enough if you analyse the use of passed/past. So, past and passed can be nouns and adjectives? How can you tell which to use? “describing word for a thing”, or an adjective – or even as a “thing”: a noun. In the most confusing scenarios I can think of, “passed” can be used as a Of what is going on, while the first is fairly clear. Granted, both fragments are incomplete, but the second gives little or no indication It’s easy to tell what the most meaningful (part of the) verb is. Then, imagine that clause without the other part of the verb: Imagine the clause without the ‘have’ part… If the “doing word” in a clause is associated with “have”: “Have”, is of course a verb, but in this case, In the first clause, “having passed” is the verb. “Having passed beneath the bridge, she took a seat.”
If you ever need to consider ‘to have’ or ‘to be’ in conjunction with “passed/past”, remember that these are actually parts of the verb in many sentences. Is it the past tense of the “doing word” pass, meaning that it *was* the doing word (I *passed* the checkpoint last night.) Is the word describing another “doing word” in the sentence (the band *marched* past), If “a car goes past”, what’s the verb? Go(es).ĭon’t be confused when writing a sentence that should have passed/past in it. If “a car passes you”, what’s the verb? Pass(es). I know that sounds simplistic, but that’s really all there is to it.ĭifficulties in assessment can vary from sentence to sentence, To find the verb, you find the “doing word”. Analyse your sentence – that’s all you need do.