Page 141 - Red Feather Book 2

Verb Tense Consistency
Remember when you are writing about something that is happening now, stay in the present tense, and if you are writing about what happened in the past stay in the past tense. Never shift verb tense within the same sentence.
Example:
When the youth saw the King’s daughter he is so overcome by her great beauty
that he forgets all danger. (INCORRECT)
When the youth saw the King’s daughter he was so overcome by her great beauty
that he forgot all danger. (CORRECT)
Read the fragment of The Valiant Little Tailor. Write on the line the correct form of
the verb in red. Check for subject verb agreement and verb consistency.
The Valiant Little Tailor
by The Grimm Brothers
One summer’s morning a little tailor were was sitting on his table by the window; he were was in good spirits, and sew sewed with all his might. Then come
came
This rang pleasantly in the tailor’s ears; he stretch streched his delicate head out of the win-
a peasant woman down the street crying, “Good jams, cheap! Good jams, cheap!” dow, and called, “Come up here, dear woman; here you will get rid of your goods.” The woman come
came
up the three steps to the tailor with her heavy basket, and he made her unpack the whole of the pots for him. He inspected all of them, lift lifted them up, put his nose to them, and at length said, “The jam seem seems to me to be good, so weigh me out four ounces, dear woman, and if it is a quarter of a pound that is of no consequence.” The woman who had hoped to find a good sale, give gave him what he desired, but go went away quite angry and grumbling. “Now, God bless the jam to my use,” cried the little tailor, “and gives give me
138 The Red Feather Literature Second Course