Okay, this argument is about to be settled.
Walked passed or past the table?
According to my guru, Robin Smith, here are the rules:
Past is also like walking past something.
Pass is a verb and only a verb.
Past is a noun (regretting the past), a preposition (half past two), and an
adverb (walked past).
Any questions? Any responses/comments?
Only you, Paula.
What was the question?
I asked her:
She answered:
**
She had made the change in my ms and this was one of my first set of questions about her suggestions and marks.
Based upon service dates of the individual defendants, we believe it is a close call as to whether the exception applies to preclude application of the exclusion, because it is not clearn that four years have passed/past prior to the claim being made.
Which is correct in this sentence?????
Long sentence!
But, if I think I understand it, the word is an adverb and is therefore ‘past’.
I cheated on this and looked adverb up in Wikipedia.
Based upon service dates of the individual defendants, we believe it is a close call as to whether the exception applies to preclude application of the exclusion, because it is not clearn that four years have passed/past prior to the claim being made.
Which is correct in this sentence?????
Correct usage is this case is not “past,” it is “passed.” The word is functioning as a verb (NOT an adverb – the helping verb “have” hould be a clue) in this sentence. If you can substitute “elpased” or “gone by” and have the sentence still make sense, then the correct word is “passed.”
I don’t think agree with Matt here; I think the correct usage IS “past”, following this definition of “past”/”passed”:
“If you are referring to time or distance, use ‘past’: ‘the team performed well in the past,’ ‘the police car drove past the suspect’s house’. If you are referring to the action of passing, however, you need to use ‘passed’: ‘when John passed the gravy, he spilled it on his lap,’ ‘the teacher was astonished that none of the students had passed the test.’
So the correct sentence would be: “four years have PAST prior to the claim being made” [Because the sentence concerns time].
Do let me know if I am wrong though.
Lee.
two observations for Lee.
The sentence, “the police car drove past the suspect’s house†is right because the word past can be substituted by the adverb “beyondâ€.
Or you can rephrase the sentence with “the police car drove by or passed by the suspect’s houseâ€. So it would be incorrect to write two conjugated verbs without a connecting element, such as “drove and passed byâ€
The sentence “four years have PAST prior to the claim being made†is wrong because it’s referring to a verb being conjugated. In other words it’s talking about the action of time passing.
The sentence, “the police car drove past the suspect’s house†is right because the word past can be substituted by the adverb “beyondâ€.
Or you can rephrase the sentence with “the police car drove by or passed by the suspect’s houseâ€. So it would be incorrect to write two conjugated verbs without a connecting element, such as “drove and passed byâ€
The sentence “four years have PAST prior to the claim being made†is wrong because it’s referring to a verb being conjugated. In other words it’s talking about the action of time passing.
‘pass’ is NOT only a verb.
A week-end pass… a VIP pass…
Got Thought Patterns of your own? Input ’em here.
reading your discussions on past/passed. I do not have the option of changing around the sentence (legal transcript); which is correct: do you know which side of your car that that car passed/past you on?
is that the car that passed/past you?
I’m thinking “passed” because it’s the action of “moving in a path as to approach and continue beyond something” (as per merium-webster’s definition of “pass” under No. 3, but your correct example of the cop car drove past the house has now confused me.
Can you help?
Join the club! I am sooo confused now. I mean, really confused.
I will consult the various gurus and start another post.
Analyse your sentence – that’s all you need do.
To find the verb, you find the “doing word”.
I know that sounds simplistic, but that’s really all there is to it.
Difficulties in assessment can vary from sentence to sentence,
but it’s usually quite straight forward.
If “a car passes you”, what’s the verb? Pass(es).
If “a car goes past”, what’s the verb? Go(es).
Don’t be confused when writing a sentence that should have passed/past in it.
Just ask yourself:
is the word describing another “doing word” in the sentence (the band *marched* past),
or
is it the past tense of the “doing word” pass, meaning that it *was* the doing word (I *passed* the checkpoint last night.)
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.
“Having passed beneath the bridge, she took a seat.”
In the first clause, “having passed” is the verb. “Have”, is of course a verb, but in this case,
*passed* is the meaningful verb.
How can you tell?
If the “doing word” in a clause is associated with “have”:
imagine the clause without the ‘have’ part…
“. . . passed beneath the bridge . . .”
Then, imagine that clause without the other part of the verb:
“Having . . . beneath the bridge . . .”
It’s easy to tell what the most meaningful (part of the) verb is.
Granted, both fragments are incomplete, but the second gives little or no indication
of what is going on, while the first is fairly clear.
In the most confusing scenarios I can think of, “passed” can be used as a
“describing word for a thing”, or an adjective – or even as a “thing”: a noun.
So, past and passed can be nouns and adjectives? How can you tell which to use?
It’s still easy enough if you analyse the use of passed/past.
You need to ask yourself some questions about your sentence.
Are you talking about describing something from the past: the time before the present?
If yes, then you use “past”, of course.
*past* Prime Ministers, *past* glories
or
Are you using “passed”, which is for “movement” from one place to the next?
(Even if you are talking about moving from one *time* to another)
If you are talking about “passed”, for movement, then you need to ask yourself:
“Am I describing another verb?”
If you are, you need past.
*running* past, *walking* past, *marching* past, etc.
If you are not, are you describing something that has been passed?
Can’t tell? Substitute “kicked” – it changes the meaning, but makes things far more obvious.
Example: He examined the past/passed ball.
With substitution: He examined the “kicked” ball (the ball that had been kicked).
So the verb “pass” is being used to describe the ball by what has happened to it –
it was passed, so we used “passed”.
What about time? Time seems to be the nastiest of all.
“Remember times past?”
Yeap. Analysis time!
What does it mean? *Past* is describing *times*. *Times* is not a verb here (*remember* is).
So *past* is not an adverb, but an adjective – it describes a noun.
“Past”, when used as an adjective describes history,
meaning “gone by in time; elapsed; done with; over.”
But wait! What about this…
“I remembered with fondness all those times passed together with my friends.”
This is correct. I might hear howls of disapproval, but let’s examine the
facts. First, a similar sentence – no smoke and mirrors, but another example:
“I remember with fondness all those bridges crossed together with my friends.”
Ok, bridges: noun,
crossed: adjective (in this case, a verb used in past tense as a description of bridges)
So…
“I remember with fondness all those times passed together with my friends.”
Ok, times: noun,
passed: adjective (in this case, a verb used in past tense as a description of times)
Woah!
Now consider this:
“I remember with fondness all those times past, together with my friends.”
How can this be right?
Well for the nasty issue of time:
For “times past”: times is a noun, “describing all of or some times (in the) past”.
For “times passed”: times is again a noun, but with emphasis on individual parts, hinted by “passed” which is the past tense of the verb “pass”. So it refers to a collection of individual “times” that have “gone by”.
How can both sentences be right?
“I remember with fondness all those times passed together with my friends.”
Means times *spent* (or passed) together with friends.
“I remember with fondness all those times past, together with my friends.”
Means times that belong in history are remembered, and I am together with
my friends remembering them.
Both are horrible, horrible sentences, by the way. You can emphasise your chosen meaning
far more clearly if you remove the need the phrase “times past/passed”.
Examples:
“I remember with fondness all those times passed together with my friends.”
could become…
“I remember with fondness all the times I passed with my friends.”
or even better
“I remember with fondness, all those times spent together with my friends.”
Second sentence:
“I remember with fondness all those times past, together with my friends.”
could become…
“I remember with fondness all those times in the past, together with my friends.”
Still a horrible sentence: it’s ambiguous! Are we remembering friends in the past,
or remembering *with* them in the present?
best rewrite while retaining “past” is probably:
“My friends and I remember with with fondness, all those times in the past.”
or for the other meaning:
“I remember with fondess, all those times in the past that were spent together with friends.”
One more thing: Don’t come to grief with describing something that has “gone” either.
If you mean dead presidents, I’d recommend saying that: don’t write “passed presidents”,
unless you are confident of your audience – even though it’s correct.
There’s no prize for being ambiguous (unless you’re in an ambiguity contest, and there
ain’t many of those around!)
Why is “passed presidents” even correct? Passed (as in “passed away”) – to have gone from one place to another, by implication in this context, “gone from life to death (or even afterlife)”.
Unless we’re describing presidents being passed between giants at a dinner table or a sporting match,
“passed presidents” is going to mean dead ones.
“Past presidents” (meaning presidents in the past – obviously, not the current one, therefore) is also
easily disambiugated. “Former presidents” will often work. If you think that evokes an immediacy in
time that you don’t like, you might even use “presidents of the past” or something like that.
Phew. Lots of waffle. It’s over now, folks.
Time/times: In my opinion in plausible scenarios, that’s as hard as it gets!
This is an excellent link:
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/passed-vs-past/
as is this:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/grammarlogs2/grammarlogs330.htm
Cheers. Hope my blabbing helps someone.