Conjugate Bliss

The Grammopticon introduces a special series for victims of a failed system of public education: Back to Basics. Look for that tag here, and on the Grammopticon's Twitter feed.

Think of a sentence as a tiny story: something happens by the time it's done. The verb is the part of the sentence that tells us what happens.

What does this verb tell us, standing alone?

stabbed

1. There is probably a sharp object involved, and possibly some pain and bloodshed.
2. It happened in the past, probably as a specific event rather than a regular occurrence.

The first is presumably obvious to anyone who knows the meaning of the word. (One might use the word in other contexts--"I'll take a stab at answering that question," for example--that wouldn't involve knives, but note that one "takes a stab" in that example. One wouldn't say "stabbed." Though there are certainly cases in which one would use "stabbed" without any sharp objects involved, weapons and bloodshed make for a better story.)

The second we know because the verb is in the past tense ("stabbed," rather than "stab" or "will stab"); we presume it to be a specific event rather than, say, a regular Tuesday morning date, partly because people so seldom make standing weekly appointments to be stabbed, and partly because the past perfect ("has stabbed," "have stabbed") would be more common in the latter situation: "I go to my doctor's office for blood work every week. He has stabbed me with a needle every Tuesday morning for a month." (One might also consider this: "She has stabbed seventeen people to death." One needn't make a date to use the past perfect.)

See? One word--stabbed--and we already know quite a lot of the story. The whole one-sentence story might be either of these:

• The axe-wielding murderer stabbed the green-eyed man repeatedly in the chest.
• I stabbed at the cork with my pen because I'd forgotten to bring a corkscrew.

The first is certainly a more dramatic story. Alas, not everything that happens is dramatic, and not every verb is, either. Take a look at these sentences, and find the verb.

1. Have you done your homework?
2. The Grammopticon is always right. 
3. Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?
4. I'm like, Fuck you.
5. Yimbajeeba were everywhere.
6. If I were you, I wouldn't jump too fast to take that job.

Answers:

Are you doing your homework? (Yes, you're doing it right now by reading this post. "Did you do your homework?" tells us something different: whether or not you did it, you were supposed to have done it before now.)
 
The Grammopticon is always right. (Sometimes all that happens in our one-sentence story is the simple act of being.)
 
Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? (Sometimes that simple act of being is more obscure, and less constant.)
 
I'm like, Fuck you. (Yes, "fuck"--or "forget," if you prefer the radio version of the song--is also a verb, but "am" is the one that counts here.)
 
Yimbajeeba were everywhere. (I have no more idea what yimbajeeba are than you do, but I know they are more than one, else the sentence would use "was.")
 
If I were you, I wouldn't jump too fast to take that job. (Here we have the subjunctive mood and the conditional tense. Frightened yet? Don't be. You had no trouble reading the sentence and understanding its meaning without knowing either of those terms. No one will ever assess your ability to write or speak well based on whether you can name grammatical terms any more than  they will measure your ability to walk based on whether you can name every muscle and bone involved in walking.)

As you can see in each of these examples, even when verbs lack drama they are full of information. The form of the verb--conjugation, if you do want to fling around technical terms--is how much of that information is revealed. In the interest of keeping you interested, let us return to the story of the axe-wielding murderer.

The primary information we get from the verb is when something happens. This is what we call tense. (But don't let that make you tense.) Notice the subtle shades of meaning we can find in different tenses, even ones that convey the same general period of time.

NOW 

• The axe-wielding murderer stabs the green-eyed man repeatedly in the chest. (This is happening now; but they might meet up for a nice stabbing this time every week--we don't know for sure. Especially since an axe is a lousy weapon for stabbing. Perhaps our murderer is stabbing the green-eyed man with a finger during a heated disagreement about the relative merits of the axe as a murder weapon.)

• The axe-wielding murderer is stabbing the green-eyed man repeatedly in the chest. (Right this second! Call the police!)

HAPPENED IN THE PAST 

• The axe-wielding murderer stabbed the green-eyed man repeatedly in the chest. (So the witness said.)

• The axe-wielding murderer has stabbed the green-eyed man repeatedly in the chest. (And now what is he doing? He's putting down the axe and picking up a gun!)

HASN'T HAPPENED YET 

• The axe-wielding murderer will stab the green-eyed man repeatedly in the chest. (Why won't anyone stop him?)

• The axe-wielding murderer would stab the green-eyed man repeatedly in the chest. (But he might not if he notices the gun first.)

• The axe-wielding murderer will be stabbing the green eyed man repeatedly in the chest. (Tuesday between 2 and 3--don't be late or you'll miss it.)

Verbs like "stab" change to indicate when, but they don't tell us as much else. The verb for the simple act of being, by contrast, is full of hidden depths of meaning. (Remember, for example, the yimbajeeba.) Let us assume the who is our faithful friend the axe-wielding murderer. What do these forms of the verb for being, all in the here and now, tell us about him?

am
is
are

Let us add the axe-wielding murderer for clarity. 

• the axe-wielding murderer am
• the axe-wielding murderer is
• the axe-wielding murderer are

If you are a native speaker of English, you don't need the Grammopticon to tell you that only one of these sounds right. (See? You needn't know a lot of technical terms. A lifetime of speaking, listening, and reading has taught you just fine.) The axe-wielding murderer is . . . wielding his axe? Remarkably tall? Dressed as a nun?

What your instinct has pointed out is that "is" goes with one person (or thing), rather than many, which would be "are."

But we could use Axy with "are":

Are you Axy? You are the axe-wielding murderer!

What that tells us is the relationship between the action and the speaker. Axy is still the subject of the sentence, but he's not doing the talking. Someone is talking to him. (It's called second person, but just remember that it's "you," and you will be just fine.) 

That someone might have friends, and they all might say this:

Axy, we are your biggest fans!

Now if Axy has something to say about himself, it might be this:

I am Axy. The axe-wielding murderer of great grammatical fame am I.

To his adoring fans, he might say:

You are axe-wielding murderers too?

Alas, they are not. They are simply eager to see the demise of the green-eyed man at Axy's hands. It is, after all, Tuesday at 2.