What is a Verb?

It’s what you do!

A verb is an action of some kind, it’s something which is done. This would be the doing of a noun. As we discussed in the previous blog, a noun a person, place thing or idea. The verb is what that noun is doing. You do verbs everyday, you awaken at some point. You eat food, you drink liquids. Words like awaken, eat, and drink are all verbs.

Lets do a quick review,

“Did you drink enough water today?”

 What is the verb in this question? If you said “drink” you’d be right, good job!

Let’s try one more,

 “Don’t tell her that I ate the last cookie!”

 This one has two verbs, can you tell me which words are the verbs? If you said “tell” and “ate” you’d be correct. Very good! You’ve got this!

Do I even need them?

 Sentences without verbs

 Sentences without verbs are rare, generally speaking you will need verbs to form a complete sentence unless you’re using some kind of expression. This isn’t always the case either, but two examples of sentences without verbs would be:

 “Out with the old, in with the new.”

 “The bigger, the better.”

 As I mentioned earlier, you do need verbs most of the time. If you don’t use verbs somewhere in your statement, then your conversation won’t make any sense.

Different kinds of verbs

Stative vs Dynamic

 Early I mentioned that a verb is something you do, but this does not always have to be you deciding to do something and getting up to do it.

Stative Verbs

 Sometimes verbs are the result of something it is not actively doing, or the state of a noun. We call these special verbs stative verbs. One example of this would be:

 “That smells like roses.”

 In this example, whatever we’re talking about isn’t actively inhaling with its nose. Rather, we are detecting it by scent but we are not the subject nor are we actively trying to smell it.

Dynamic Verbs

The verbs in which you do have to do something, that is an action is actively being done is called a dynamic verb. An example of it would be as such:

“She is painting a beautiful picture.”

 In this example, something is being done. The picture in question will not paint itself and she is taking some action, making some kind of change to paint that beautiful picture.

Comprehension and retention!

 What? I thought we’ve been reviewing!

 We’ve been doing one-off reviews after each section, now we’re going to start with simple sentences and then move into whole stories to make sure the ideas in this blog are staying fresh in your mind. This is called comprehension and retention.

 Simple sentences

We’ll start with some simple sentences and go over them one by one.

“My father told me a story.”

 What is the verb here? Did you say “told?” If you did, you’re off to a great start.

 Is the verb stative, or dynamic? If you said “dynamic” you’d also be right, and you’re on a roll!

 “That sounded like the lunch bell, time to take a break!”

 There’s a stative verb in that sentence, what is it? If you said “sounded” that’s correct! You’re doing great!

 Understanding their impact

 Now that we understand verbs as a whole, we’re going to see how verbs affect the sentence with short stories. I’m going to tell you a brief story, and you’re going to tell me what the verbs are and what the story is about.

 Brad and Terry were having lunch at the local barbecue when Terry turned his head and looked outside.

 “Brad, check it out. That looks like Rick outside! But why’s he wearing pink bunny ears?” Terry asked.

 “I don’t know Terry, maybe he thinks that no one will notice.” Brad replied.

 What were some of the verbs in this story? If you said having, turned, looked, check it out, looks, wearing, asked, know, thinks, noticed, or replied then all of those are correct. Can you tell me which one is a stative verb in this story? If you said looks, you’re also correct. While we can use “looks” as a dynamic verb, it’s stative in this context because Rick isn’t looking nor are we talking about a tendency that he has to look.

 Thank you for coming by!

You did amazing

 I hope that you enjoyed this blog about verbs. Even if you didn’t get everything right the first time, that’s ok. Remember, it’s the effort that counts and trying your best makes all the difference.

New Vocab Word

Null and Void

Adjective

Not legally enforceable, or something which is no longer a factor.

Example:
The contract was found to be null and void upon inspection by a judge.