The story of tenses

One of the main characters of our story is Present Tense Simple. His best friends are frequency
adverbs: Always, Sometimes, Seldom, Often, Never, Ever, Usually. You will always find at least
one of his friends with him in a sentence.
Look!
I always go to church on Sunday!
He never leaves home without his teddy bear.
But when Present Tense Simple wants to deny something or to ask a question, he always needs
to have his buddy DO around. Otherwise, he will just stay in the affirmative zone.
I don't like apples.
Do you want to play a game with me?
Although Present Tense Continuous friends are At the moment, Right now, At the moment of
speaking, Present Tense Continuous has a common friend with Present Tense Simple. Do you
remember which one? Always, of course. But when Present Tense Continuous is in the same
sentence as Always, someone is really disturbed.
My sister is always singing when I want to study!
Present Tense Continuous is married to Be. He cant go anywhere without her. And Be is really
moody. I mean Be can be Am Are or Is.
I am writing a book right now.
He is watching TV.
Present Tense Simples father is Past Tense Simple. Past Tense Simple is suffering from multiple
personality disorder. He can have a regular verb behaviour, or a irregular verb behavior. When
he is in a regular verb mood, he just puts ed to every verb he meets. But when he is in a
irregular verb moodOh my. He keeps changing the past form of every poor verb that he
finds in his way
Past Tense Simple in a regular verb mood: work-worked, change changed
Past Tense Simple in a irregular verb mood: begin-began, cut-cut, forget-forgot
Past Tense Simples friends are Yesterday and the Last and Ago family.
I saw Mary yesterday.
I went to Brasil two years ago.
I didnt visit Italy last year.
Just like his son, he cant ask questions or say negative things by himself. He needs the help of
the old guy DID. The interrogative and negative are a family business for the Dodid family.

Past Tense Continuous is the good guy of the story. His wifes name is Was. Unlike her
daughter- in- law, Mrs. Was is not moody. She is always the same.
I was eating at this time yesterday.
Past Tense Continuous doesnt have many friends. He usually gets around with Past Tense
Simples friends, especially when At this time is around.
I was doing my homework at this time last night.
As I mentioned before, Past Tense Continuous is a good friend of Past Tense Simple. They get
together especially when When is around.
I was watching TV when you called.
Something happens though when While appears, because Past Tense Continuous keeps
repeating himself.
I was doing my homework while my sister was playing the piano.
Have I forgotten someone? OhThe Future Tense Well, Future Tense Simple is a very lazy
fellow. He doesnt go anywhere without his assistant manager Will.
He will call you tomorrow night.
And as if that werent enough, Future Tense always calls for To be going to to help him to make
plans.
I am going on a trip this week-end.
Future Tense Simples friends are Tomorrow, the Day after tomorrow and the Next family.
Thats all about tenses tonight, folks. There are many characters I havent told you about, but I will
tell you more some other time. Before ending this story, I must tell you a few things about the
nouns the nouns are some very, very tricky ladies. I mean, nouns just argue with everyone.
Lets take for example their fight with the S ending for plural. Sometimes nouns just put him
aside and form their plural as they wish. We all know that usually the plural is formed with the help
of s:
Book books, flower flowers, house- houses
But what happened to :
Man-men, mouse-mice, child-children, goose-geese?
Sometimes the nouns are so upset, that they even refuse to change their form in the plural ->
fish-fish, sheep-sheep

And I shouldnt even mention the nouns that do not want to count themselves. They prefer any
other words to form the plural than adding the s ending. Take this as example:
Chocolate > a bar of chocolate/two bars of chocolate
Bread > a loaf of bread/two loaves of bread
Advice > a piece of advice/two pieces of advice
Information > a piece of information/two pieces of information
Talking about uncountable nouns they cannot stand the article a This poor guy is so afraid
of the, that he never stands by their side . And its not just the uncountable nouns that a is
afraid of. When he has to meet the nouns that start with a vowel or with a vocalic sound, the
indefinite article takes n with him for protection.
An hour, an apple, an egg.
Pronouns are ok. I like pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they). They tend to get a little
possessive sometimes (mine, yours, his, hers, ours, yours, theirs), but thats ok. Pronouns cannot
stand nouns. But pronominal adjectives (my, your, his, her, our, your, their) seem to really love
nouns. They are inseparable.
Well, I am getting tired now, so Ill tell you about the other characters of the story some other time.
But theres such a quarrel inside my head:
I am tired, too. Says my brain.
So are we. agree my eyes.
I am not tired, replies my enthusiasm.
Neither am I. says Heywho said that? Well, never mind. Ill go to bed anyway. Butdont
forget. the story isnt over yet.