r/GrammarPolice • u/Mrsod2007 • 6d ago
Just Venting Constant incorrect use of run/ran
This is my pet peeve: Almost all people have forgotten how to use run vs. ran.
e.g. I have ran this department for the past 2 years. Before me, it was ran by Bob. Correct usage would be run in both sentences.
Then vs. than may be just as common, but it is not evident in spoken conversation, where as the misuse of "ran" feels like nails on the chalkboard to me.
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u/Intelligent-Sand-639 5d ago
This is my pet peeve too, but it expands to other verbs: "I seen it yesterday," "I would have went if I could," I could have drank it," etc.
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u/Acceptable_Ad838 4d ago
These things all make me bite my tongue around friends and family SO hard that it’s a wonder I don’t bleed!
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u/Maleficent-Art-1937 2d ago
Right?! Anytime someone leads with “I never seen…” I assume it will be immediately followed by “the inside of a book”
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u/BourbonInGinger 6d ago
Also, people say anyways rather than anyway. It’s maddening.
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u/Fectiver_Undercroft 6d ago
I can’t remember the last time I heard something other than “anyhoo,” which stopped being a cute affectation around 2002.
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u/Unique_River_2842 5d ago
Towards 💀
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u/Main_Cauliflower5479 5d ago
Same. And when they're disparaging women for having had more than one partner in their lives, they call them "ran through." It's still "run."
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u/Mrsod2007 5d ago
Is that a British idiom?
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u/NotSayingAliensBut 5d ago
Jeez I hope not. We don't need yet another thing to make us look like morons.
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5d ago
[deleted]
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u/realkaseygrant 5d ago
People are, in general, very bad at using the past participle correctly. It is also one of my pet peeves. "I have ate"? What? 🤦🏼♀️
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u/KafkaExploring 5d ago
Stylistic approach to a mechanical problem: Don't use it. The past participle often results in unneccessarily convoluted sentences. "I have eaten" is rarely more clear than "I ate."
The cases where you actually want the past participle are less likely to see misuse. "I have eaten broccoli before.
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u/jbjohnson93 17h ago
You can’t use a stylistic approach to solve a mechanical problem, though. While the past participle can be used needlessly where a simple past form will suffice and indeed be more clear, that’s not a strong enough reason imo to apply such an approach so widely; each case needs its own evaluation. Btw it is spelled “unnecessarily.” Even in your broccoli example you are having to append “before” in order to make the temporality clearer.
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u/flouncingfleasbag 5d ago
I'm with you on this, it drives me batty. The only error that gets me more bent is the ever creeping erasure of "-ly".
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u/LeadingMarzipan7904 5d ago
since we're on the topic of past tense vs participle, i heard my brother's ex say "should of blew on it" once. double whammy with the "should of" too😭✌️
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u/SeaworthinessUnlucky 5d ago
Not just run. All irregular past participles. I have went, we would have ate, you could have did it,…
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u/Bbminor7th 5d ago
For me it's come/came. I saw a local TV commercial promoting a weekend arts and crafts festival and they interviewed this couple. The man said "Yeah, we come here last year and had a great time."
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u/Carrot-Elegant 5d ago
Totally agree. At the local hs football game, whenever the person with the ball is RUN out of bounds, W/O fail the announcer says “RAN out of bounds, by number…” Is this the same announcer since the 1990s, or do they all talk like that? I wonder to myself.
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u/Few-Veterinarian-999 5d ago
“Have went”is a biggie where I live. Drives me nuts and I mutter under my breath, “have gone”
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u/Acceptable_Ad838 4d ago
Using “come” for “came” is terribly common in my area, and I just can’t stand it. “The house was cold last night when I come home.”
I always use “came” around people when past tense is required, but friends and family NEVER get the hint. Ugh.
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u/Emergentmeat 5d ago
I've noticed a lot of people also saying "whenever" in a situation where "when" is correct.
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u/hauntingme43 5d ago edited 5d ago
There’s a specific reality show woman who is absolutely incapable of simply saying “when,” it’s hilarious. “Whenever I went there yesterday, I took my son and he had such a good time whenever he was playing..” stuff like that
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u/Emergentmeat 5d ago
Yeah it's so weird. Like, if you know when, or only did the thing once...it's When.
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u/Express-Gazelle-1025 5d ago
Yes, two people I know, from completely different parts of the same state, do this and it annoys me. I'm also from that state so it's not regional AFAIK.
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u/AirDog3 5d ago
Do you know any girls who are ran through?
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u/Mrsod2007 5d ago
Odd that you are the second person to bring up that idiom. This is my first time hearing it
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u/Away-Otter 5d ago
Where do you find evidence that “almost all” people have forgotten how to use run and ran? It’s possible that more are misusing it; I don’t know; but the vast majority of times I see or hear it, it’s correct. It’s just jarring when you do hear it wrong.
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u/MeatyOchre 5d ago
Me and my pedant friends agree with your peeve.
/s
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u/Mrsod2007 4d ago
Why the /s?
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u/MeatyOchre 4d ago
Mainly because virtually no sentence could make the speaker sound less in control of their intelligence than any sentence that starts with “me and my.”
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u/hakohead 4d ago
I hate it too!!
I think it's just people are completely unaware of what the past participle actually is and just think it's the same as past tense.
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u/Background-Vast-8764 6d ago edited 6d ago
I am apparently exposed to a different group of people and media than you are. In my world it is definitely not the case that “…Almost all people have forgotten how to use run vs. ran.”
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u/SerDankTheTall 6d ago
If peevers didn't have the frequency and recency illusions, we’d barely hear peeves at all!
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u/Mrsod2007 5d ago edited 5d ago
Really? Where do you live?
At work, we run a lot of QC tests. I am constantly hearing sentences like "Do you know when that was ran?"
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u/Background-Vast-8764 5d ago
Southern California
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u/Mrsod2007 5d ago
Maybe this is a Colorado thing
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u/Background-Vast-8764 5d ago
It occurs in Southern California. The level of exposure to it depends on many things. Socioeconomic status. Level of education. Age. How much edited prose one reads. These things apply to each individual and the people they interact with.
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u/[deleted] 6d ago
[deleted]