Topic

Grammar quibble: pet vs. petted

Please, please change "You pet a pig" (or whatever) to "petted"! Everything else is in the past tense ("You watered a tree," etc.) but then "pet" is in the present tense. 

(Sorry if this was brought up before; I did do a forum search before posting.)

Thank you!

Posted 91 days ago by ZenMonkey Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Google says the internet's kinda divided on this one.

    To me, "you petted a pig" sounds really, really awkward.
    Posted 91 days ago by diaveborn ♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Petted is, nevertheless, the correct past participle of "pet," especially when it's written. I think I know what you mean about the Internet; most deviations on this kind of thing come from spoken language, which is similar to much if not most online discourse. I don't think I'd even mind if a tree said it that way since their dialogue is stylized. But as game information in text, where the grammar is prescriptively correct in every other case, "pet" is just incorrect in this one.

    (Yeah, I do tend to slide into English-teacher-speak on this subject.)
    Posted 91 days ago by ZenMonkey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ah, adding the word participle to my search helped.  Thanks! :) Now I'm seeing something that is "here's the way it is" rather than five billion search results about people asking and debating.

    So, awkwardness aside, I support the change!
    Posted 91 days ago by diaveborn ♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Right on. :-)
    Posted 90 days ago by ZenMonkey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I see this has been recategorized from "bug" to "idea." Typos are bugs in text. This isn't something I dreamt up.
    Posted 90 days ago by ZenMonkey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I always thought it was intentional in a cutesy way.
    Posted 89 days ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've experienced a huge amount of 'pet' instead of 'petted through reading and listening. If it should be changed, perhaps change it to "You patted a pig"?

    That I know of, there's no controversy over that word's use, and it's a very close synonym.
    Posted 89 days ago by Ladyimp Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There's no reason to change it to "patted." "Pet" has a perfectly good past participle, which no matter what you've read (and definitely no matter what you've heard), is "petted." I can't account for other people's errors and/or deliberate choices of tone, style, etc., but for accurate consistency, in this case it should be corrected. 
    Posted 89 days ago by ZenMonkey Subscriber! | Permalink