drank/drunk
Many verbs in English change form when their past tense is preceded by an auxiliary (“helping”) verb: “I ran, I have run.” The same is true of “drink.” Don’t say “I’ve drank the beer” unless you want people to think you are drunk. An even more common error is “I drunk all the milk.” It’s “I’ve drunk the beer” and “I drank all the milk.”
The dirty rotten scoundrel! Had I known how drunk he was I'd have never offered him a drink when he arrived. There he was boasting of his feat. Like a drunken lord of the Old Bailey in the 20’s having handed down a sentence to the poorest widow of the morning accused of nothing more than tripe. And being so intoxicated and still thirsty for another drink - he hurried on the day blurry eyed thumping his hammer with the skill of an Irish traditional musical drunkard in a back street bar. Beating the dried up goat skin of a bodhran with a short stick or spoon but without the usual timing, he drank, and he cursed me for my upturned nose of disapproval. “Drink” I exclaimed as though I had never enjoyed one! – “the curse of all humanity has visited me today.” As I lay there wiping my red runny nose, dazed from his knockout and knowing full well that I too had a niggling problem I considered what it was to be righteous! That day I drank my last, appalled by my own and the nation's hypocrisy. And as much as I still enjoy the smell of a beer or a malt whiskey I just pass it by like a feather on a breeze stopping by a garden of a summer’s day to tempt a lonely traveller away from the cruel and dangerous narcotic streets of my city. A drink never did a man no harm!
ReplyDeleteJ.A.