Past Participle: Respect the Voice
My first non-babysitting job was running a snack bar at a small swim and tennis club. An opening weekend task was to write the menu on the chalkboard, and in my best block printing I wrote “ice tea.” The club manager swooped down, erased the entry, handed the chalk back to me and said, “It’s iced tea, not ice tea. You don’t make tea out of ice; you put it on ice.” I made the correction and chalked it up to a learning experience. (See what I did there? Chalk? Chalked it up? Okay…)
Fast forward to a school theatre production experience. During a set-building session for a play, one student painted “ice tea” on the set menu board. Memories of the snack bar and the chalk swept over me, and it was my turn to swoop down with the hypothetical eraser. This time, instead of complying as young snack-bar Nancy did, this student stood his ground and argued his point.
“No way, Mrs. M. It’s ice tea. If it’s ice cream, then it’s ice tea.”
After having him look it up, I handed him the paint brush, which he begrudgingly took to repaint and add the missing -d.
Lessons Learned
What my transitive property-insistent student discovered was that ice cream used to be iced cream, i.e., cream that had been iced. Iced is the past participle version of the verb to ice, adding the suffix -d to turn it into an adjective that describes the cream.
Past participles are words made from verbs by adding -ed, -d, -t, -en, -or, or -n at the end of infinitives. Past participles function as adjectives or verbs, and in this case, iced is an adjective describing cream or tea. In the case of iced cream, over years of the general public’s dropping the -d sound, ice cream became the moniker of our current no-d-at-the-end popular frozen dessert.
The same history applies to skimmed milk and iced water, both of which have dropped the past participle form to become the more familiar and commonly used skim milk and ice water. Find the detailed story from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary here.
But time and usage have not changed all past participles used as adjectives. You can go to a fish fry to consume fried fish. You can still wrap a sandwich in waxed paper, and you can still find old fashioned in many an item description, as well as it being the name of an alcoholic beverage made with whiskey (rye or bourbon), sugar, a lemon twist, bitters, and a cherry. (I’ll be right back.)
These are important examples for restaurant owners and set decorators alike, but as all writers know, examples of past participles as adjectives for things other than food items abound. But I’ll still take the category “Past Participles in Food Names,” Alex.
Honor the Voice in Fiction and Non-fiction
When deciding how to use these past participles, writers must honor the voice of the characters the story. If your character lives in Atlanta, she will order sweet tea rather than sweetened tea. Dump the past participle and write in that authentic suhthun’ voice. Heck, offer her sweet, sweet, sweet tea! If the character comes from the Midwest and orders fry fish at the fish fry, then write it that way. Beware, though. What self-respecting New York deli would advertise a box lunch? Fuggedaboudit! The guy taking your order might say it that way, but the catering menu will read boxed lunches.
Honoring the voice of characters is almost a no-brainer. However, it is just as important to consider the voice of your narrator to determine how the past participles as adjectives will appear in print in the storytelling. Is the narrator educated? Then be sure the toast was burnt, not burned (and it was definitely served with iced tea).
If your narrator boasts life experience with little academic background, then take a lesson from Mark Twain’s narrator, Huck Finn. His narration mirrors his background, dropped suffixes and all. His narration speaks as much to his education, formal or otherwise, his environment, and the historical times. All of these will influence how a writer presents adjectives.
A third person objective narrator will most likely use the correct grammar all through the piece, including forms of the past participle as an adjective. If you are using this voice, perhaps in writing news articles and journals, knowing this information is key to clear, consistent writing.
Capturing the voice of primary sources is equally important. You say you are writing the definitive piece on 1920s thatched rooves in County Offaly, Ireland? Chances are one of your primary sources is my grandmother’s October 2, 1991, Ellis Island Oral History Project Interview. If so, you need to quote her talking about the “tatch roof.” She never met an -ed she couldn’t drop, and she was proud of her Hibernian heritage and lilting brogue. Honor that and capture it by using her term when directly quoting her, then provide the correct thatched in the narration.
It is important to consider how you wish to present the source. It is suggested the writer consider the light that will be shed on the person by the correct or incorrect usage of language when writing narration or quoting the source. In some cases, correcting the past participle usage is the kinder, gentler way to reflect the information and the honor the person. The question here is, “Is it more important to reflect the exact language used by the source or to present the information?”
Research and Prepare
When it comes to writing, whether on a set-piece menu board or in your manuscript’s narration, it is important to do your research. Whatever past participle forms you decide to use, be sure to notate it for your proofreader and editor in your style guide and/or be prepared for a lot of comments regarding usage in the document.
In other words, put down your chalk or your paint brush and look it up, preferably with a glass of iced tea—or an old fashioned—at hand.