The ‘Do’ verb is categorized under The Primary
Auxiliaries in English Language. Owing to this, it is referred to as Function
word. That is, a verb that helps main verbs in sentences. For clarification,
the following are what you should know about the ‘Do’ verb.
·
It is known as ‘To do’ or ‘Do’ verbs.
·
It consists of three forms which are
does, do, and did.
·
It is known as helping verbs.
·
It sometimes serve as main verb in
sentences.
‘To do’ verb
consists of do, does and did and these three are daily words commonly used for
conversations. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why many English users
misused them a lot. This was discovered after giving out a worksheet on ‘Do
verbs’ days ago. However, below are the 5 noticeable mistakes average percent
of people make.
- Invalid agreement between the subject and ‘to do’ verbs
Many English users do not use the appropriate ‘to do’
verbs to match the subject of the sentence and this renders sentences ungrammatical.
Examples are:
Many
English users does not use appropriate words
Sandra
and Mayowa does not play on the assembly ground
She do
go to club for daily drink
In other to avoid grammatical blunders as above, one
has to know the nook and cranny of Subject verb agreement in other to know the
singular ‘to do verb’, ‘the plural’ and the past tense. Click here to learn
more.
At this point, the correct way to write the above
sentences is:
Many English users do not use appropriate words
Sandra and Mayowa do not play on the assembly ground
She does go to club for daily drink
In these sentences, all ‘to do’ verbs show agreement
with the subject. ‘Do’ in sentence one is a plural verb that match with the
subject, many users which is also plural. In sentence 2, ‘do’ shows agreement
with the subject, Sandra and Mayowa. In sentence 3, ‘does’ agrees with the
subject, she.
Note that failure to show agreement between ‘to do’
verbs and subject in sentences equals failure to write grammatical sentences.
(Rule 1)
1. Use of singular verbs for ‘Do’ verbs.
It is ungrammatical to singularize verbs that
succeed any of the ‘Do’ forms. In other words, when you use singular verbs
after does, do or did, either you want to show agreement or you don’t know the
rules, you are wrong and that’s a 100% grammatical blunder that no one will
admit for you. Examples of such mistakes are:
Does Sandra goes to
school?
Does daddy sells
tomato?
None of the above sentences could be verified as a
correct one. This is because one of the rules when using the ‘Do’ verbs is
that, one should not show agreement with the singular subject since the verb ‘does’
is already in agreement. Thus, the verb should remain in its base form. The correct
way to write these sentences is:
Does Sandra go to
school?
Does daddy sell tomato?
As you can see, the verb ‘go’ and ‘sell’ are written
in their base form. No‘s’ is added since Does is already in agreement with the
subject. (Rule 2)
1.
Use of past tense to show agreement with ‘did’.
Don’t be bewildered to if you notice after reading
the third point that you are one of those who make this blunder while trying to
show agreement between the subject and the verb or between the verb and another
verb in a sentence. Let us study these examples.
Did
you took the matches?
Did you
drank the Zobo
Did
the principal gave Mrs Eunice a gift?
Take a binge look at these examples, you will notice
that it is possible that you fall into the category of people who make this
mistakes. Since it looks like the person in question (English user) is trying
to comport his/her sentences by merging the past tense ‘did’ with another past
tense (lexical verbs). Just like in sentence 1, the writer use took to show
agreement with ‘did’ since he knows that ‘did’ is a past tense verb. Exactly the
logic in the other 2 sentences. However, this is a subtle grammatical blunder
that many English users may not know. The correct sentences are:
Did you take the matches?
Did you drink the Zobo
Did the principal give Mrs Eunice a gift?
What did you notice? I have changed all lexical
verbs in each sentences from their past tense to their base form. Took to take,
drank to drink and gave to give.
This juncture, be aware that ‘to do’ verbs take base
form of a verb and there is no need to singularize a verb or change a verb to
past tense or past participle. Therefore, whenever you want to use ‘did’, make
sure you use it together with the base form of the lexical verbs of the
sentences.