Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

Other verbs

532g

Some other verbs display irregular past forms in AmE which are not used in BrE,

for example dove as the past tense of dive (BrE dived), and pled as the past tense

of plead (BrE pleaded):

He 

pled guilty to avoid the death penalty. 

(AmE)

The eagle just folded his wings, folded his legs, 

dove right down and crashed

right into the guy and almost killed him. 

(AmE)

TAGS AND TAILS

533

Interrogative tags (

Û

300, 431

) are around four times more frequent in BrE than

in AmE, but a wide range of interrogative tags occur in both varieties:

He’s brilliant, 

isn’t he? 

(BrE)

They weren’t reading, 

were they?

(AmE)

In informal contexts, AmE speakers often use an interrogative copy tag with rising

intonation in responses denoting surprise or emotional involvement, which is not

common in BrE:

A: I changed schools three times.

B: You did?

A: In one year.

B: Wow. Wow. 

(AmE; BrE prefers Did you? here, with fall-rise or rising intonation)

A: You know what guys? One of my big weaknesses is bags. I love bags. I don’t

know why. 

B: You do?

A: Yeah.

(AmE; BrE preferred form: Do you?)

BrE often adds substitute do to reduced clauses with modal verbs, especially in tag

responses. AmE uses the modal verb only:

[Riverjazz is a jazz club]

A: Do you want to go to Riverjazz tonight? 

B: Do I have to? 

A: No. 

B: Are you going? 

A: I might do. 

(BrE)