Open your dictionary to a verb like “begin” and you’re likely to see, in bold, something like: “begin — began, begun, beginning.” Have you ever stopped to think about what each of these words represents? The answer can unlock some of the language’s best-kept secrets. In most dictionaries, after the base form of an irregular verb come its simple past tense, its past participle and its present or progressive participle.
Don’t let these terms scare you. They’re concepts you already understand. Today I “begin” (present). Yesterday I “began” (simple past tense). In the past, I have “begun” (past participle). Right now I am “beginning” (present participle). They’re that simple, and in every dictionary I’ve seen, they’re listed in that exact order. To make it easier, think of the past participle as the one that goes with “have” or “had.” The present participle is the one that ends in “ing” and works with a form of “to be” such as “is,” “am” or “was.”
So the answer to that lifelong “have drank” versus “have drunk” bugaboo is right at your fingertips. “Webster’s New World College Dictionary” writes: “drank; drunk or now informal drank; drinking.” So the preferred form to use with “have” is “drunk,” although, if you want to be informal, they’ll let you get away with “have drank.”
Dictionaries always list their preferred forms first, so if you want to know whether to write “catalog” or “catalogue,” open your dictionary and you’ll see something like “catalog or catalogue,” which means both spellings are fine but they recommend “catalog.”
