Akeem Lasisi
As Edo State elected its next governor on Saturday, some words naturally became recurrent as people discussed the poll. Among such are vote/voted, count/counted, collate/collated. Another term that often sparks a grammatical blunder – cast – also resurfaced. It is an irregular verb that, in most circumstances, does not take -ed when in the past tense form, yet some people say they ‘casted’ or have ‘casted’ their votes instead of they ‘have cast’ it.
Voted, counted, and collated are popular words. Even an averagely educated person knows that their past tense forms are voted, counted, and collated respectively. What many do not, however, realise is that their pronunciations follow a peculiar pattern. Instead of saying votED, for instance, you should say votID, by pronouncing the ‘e’ in ‘voted’ as the one in ‘depart’ instead of as the one in ‘sell’.
Pronouncing words that end with -ed.
It is not all words that end with letters ‘ed’ that its final sound comes out as -ED when pronounced. As a matter of fact, they can be categorised into three according to their spellings, which means that there are three ways of saying them. This is why although voted, asked and prayed are all regular verbs in the past tense form, the -ed in each is pronounced differently.
First Category: Halted: haltID
First category: The past tense marker (ed) should sound like ‘id’ if the present tense form (base word) ends in t/te, d:
Halt – halted (past tense): haltID (pronunciation)
Wait – waited: waitID
Vote – voted: votID
Count – counted: countID
Mend – mended: mendID
Raid – raided: raidID
Blend – blended: blendID
Second category: Task – tasked: taskT
Pronounce as T if the word ends in k, s, ch, sh, p and f(gh):
Task – tasked (past tense): taskT (pronunciation)
Ask – asked (past tense) askT
Wash – washed (past tense): washT
Tap – tapped (past tense): tapT
Third Category: Boom – boomed: boomD
Pronounce the past tense marker as D in other verbs:
Boom – boomed (past tense) boomD (pronunciation)
Imagine – imagined: imaginD
Declare – declared: declareD
Play – played: paiD