What Can Thanksgiving Teach You About English Grammar?

What Can Thanksgiving Teach You About English Grammar?

Every year around the Thanksgiving holiday, a strange ceremony happens in Washington¹, DC. The president stands outside the White House, gives a brief speech and then officially pardons a turkey.

A pardon is a declaration² that someone will not be punished.

In this ceremony, President Barack Obama promises not to cook and eat a certain turkey, even though turkeys are the traditional Thanksgiving meal.

You might be asking yourself, "What is the connection between turkeys, Thanksgiving and grammar?"

In today's report, we explore what turkeys can teach you about English verbs³.

In particular, we will show you how Thanksgiving can teach you to use stative verbs. We will also show you the difference between stative and progressive⁵ verbs.

What is a stative verb⁴?

The term stative verb refers to a verb that has a stative meaning. In other words, these verbs show or describe conditions or situations that do not do anything but exist.

Verbs that commonly have a stative meaning include:

verbs that show emotional⁶ states, such as love and dislike;

verbs that describe sense perceptions⁷, such as smell or taste;

verbs that show existence, such as seem or look.

In the present tense, a verb with a stative meaning is generally used in its simple form. "I love turkey," or "Americans like turkey" are two examples.

Verbs that have stative meanings are generally not used in the progressive tense. So, you will probably not hear a native speaker say, "I am loving turkey," or "Americans are liking⁸ turkey."

Thanksgiving and stative verbs

Do not fear: we can use our Thanksgiving example to make the point clearer.

Imagine you are at an American store. You hear a conversation between a customer and a store employee⁹. The customer wants to buy a turkey that weighs 10 pounds, or 4.5 kilograms¹⁰.

Unlike¹¹ the turkey from the pardoning ceremony, this turkey will have a sad fate¹²: the dinner table.

The conversation you hear might go like this:

Customer: How much does that turkey weigh?

Butcher¹³: It weighs 10 pounds.

Customer: How much does it cost?

Butcher: It costs 20 dollars.

In the dialogue, you can hear two examples of stative verbs: weigh and cost.

The butcher said, "The turkey weighs 10 pounds,” and "The turkey costs 20 dollars." In both cases, the verbs have a stative meaning: The butcher is describing a condition or situation that simply exists – the weight and cost of the turkey.

Now imagine you are eating Thanksgiving dinner with an American family. You might hear any one of the following sentences:

"I love turkey!"

"I dislike turkey."

"The turkey smells wonderful!"

"The food tastes great!"

"The turkey seems undercooked."

"The turkey looks awful."

All these sentences include stative verbs. You might notice that the verbs are also in the simple present form.

Why not use a progressive verb?

So, why would an English speaker not say, "The turkey is seeming undercooked," or, "I am disliking turkey?"

Susan Conrad and Douglas Biber are two English grammar experts. They say that, in general, English speakers use the progressive tense only when the subject of the verb actively¹⁴ controls the state or action.

In addition, English speakers generally use the progressive only when the verb describes an action or state that happens over an extended¹⁵ period of time.

So, you would not hear an English speaker say, "The turkey is seeming undercooked" because the subject of the verb, the turkey, does not control its state – being undercooked.

For the same reason, you would not hear an English speaker say, "I am disliking turkey," because the verb's subject, I, probably does not have control over the action of disliking turkey.

Now, some verbs can have stative and progressive meanings.

Consider these examples:

"The food tastes good."

"President Obama is tasting the food."

In the first sentence, the food does not control whether it is good or bad. As a result, the verb taste has a stative meaning because it simply describes the condition of the food.

In the second sentence, "President Obama is tasting the food," the subject of the verb, President Obama, has control over his action.

In addition, the action takes place over an extended period of time: Obama must think about tasting food, then raise the food to his mouth, then consider its quality. So, you could say that the verb taste in this example has a progressive meaning.

What can you do?

The next time you are reading or listening to the news, pay special attention to the verbs.

Notice when the progressive form is used, and when the simple form is used. Then ask yourself why. Does the verb's subject control the action? Does the action occur¹⁶ over an extended period of time? Or does the verb simply describe a condition that exists?

If you are still confused¹⁷ about whether you should use a simple or progressive verb in your own conversations, Conrad and Biber have one tip that might help you.

They say that in conversations, English speakers use simple verbs around 120 times in every 1,000 words.

Progressive verbs are much less common: they appear fewer than 20 times in every 1,000 words.*

Words in This Story

stative – adj. expressing a state, condition, or relation

progressive – adj. of or relating to the progressive tense of a verb

dislike – v. to not like (something or someone)

undercooked – adj. not cooked enough

1 Washington   

n.华盛顿特区(是美国首都)

参考例句：

• His birthplace is Washington,but he lives in San Francisco.他出生于华盛顿，但住在旧金山。
• They, together with my father,have gone to Washington.他们和我父亲一起去华盛顿了。

2 declaration   

n.宣布，宣告，宣言，声明（书），申报

参考例句：

• We read the declaration posted on the bulletin board.我们读了贴在布告板上的声明。
• At the recent convention a declaration was adopted.在最近举行的大会上通过了一项宣言。

3 verbs   

动词

参考例句：

• I have to swot up on phrasal verbs for a test tomorrow. 我不得不为明天的测验努力温习短语动词。
• Verbs that do not take object are called intransitive verbs. 不带宾语的动词称为不及物动词。

4 verb   

n.[语]动词

参考例句：

• The sentence is formed from a verb and two nouns.这句子由一个动词和两个名词构成。
• These are the finite forms of a verb.这些是一个动词的限定形式。

5 progressive   

adj.先进的；前进的，渐进的；进行式的

参考例句：

• There is often a progressive loss of sight in old age.上了年纪的人视力逐步减退。
• It's a progressive idea.这是一种进步的思想。

6 emotional   

adj.令人动情的；易动感情的；感情(上)的

参考例句：

• Emotional people don't stop to calculate.感情容易冲动的人做事往往不加考虑。
• This is an emotional scene in the play.这是剧中动人的一幕。

7 perceptions   

感知（能力）( perception的名词复数 )； 觉察（力）； 认识； 观念

参考例句：

• Her perceptions and intuitions about human nature were fascinating. 她对人性的理解和感知引人入胜。
• There was no inside to Whitman's perceptions. 惠特曼的直觉里没有内涵。

8 liking   

n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢

参考例句：

• The word palate also means taste or liking.Palate这个词也有“口味”或“嗜好”的意思。
• I must admit I have no liking for exaggeration.我必须承认我不喜欢夸大其词。

9 employee   

n.职员，员工，受雇人员

参考例句：

• Each employee received a like bonus.每个雇员都得到了相同数目的奖金。
• They brought around a new employee this morning.他们今天早晨请来了一位新雇员。

10 kilograms   

n.千克( kilogram的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• 2 kilograms of rice 2公斤大米
• Every tonne of coal contains,on average,30 kilograms of nitrogen. 每吨煤平均含30公斤氮。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 unlike   

adj.不同的，不相似的；prep.不像，和...不同

参考例句：

• She's very unlike her mother.她一点也不像她母亲。
• It's unlike him to be late;he's usually on time.他不是会迟到的那种人，他通常很准时。

12 fate   

n.命运；结局，结果；将来，前景

参考例句：

• The Titanic met her fate by crashing into a huge iceberg.泰坦尼克号客轮因撞上一个大冰山而沉没。
• Your future is bound up with the fate of your motherland.你的前途同祖国的命运紧密相联。

13 butcher   

n.屠夫，肉商，小贩；vt.屠宰，屠杀

参考例句：

• A butcher needs sharp knives.屠夫需利刃。
• He was as great a butcher as the world has been.他是有史以来最大的杀人狂。

14 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

15 extended   

adj.延伸的；伸展的；延长的；扩大的v.延伸(extend的过去式和过去分词)；伸展；延长

参考例句：

• an extended lunch hour 延长了的午餐时间
• France has greatly extended its influence in world affairs. 在世界事务中，法国的影响已大大地扩大了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 occur   

vi.发生，想到，存在

参考例句：

• Didn't it occur to you to close the window?难道你没有想到去关窗户吗？
• I hope this won't occur again.我希望不要再发生这种事情。

17 confused   

adj.困惑的，烦恼的

参考例句：

• They asked so many questions that they confused me.他们问了许多问题，都把我弄糊涂了。
• A wise man is never confused.智者不惑。