by Jennie Ruby
In the battle against wordiness and passive voice that many editors wage–and largely with good reason–there is one casualty that is collateral damage: deletion of the word has or have from sentences like this one:
- The news reports have presented two different views on the safety of aspirin.
The word have is part of the present perfect tense. The present perfect tense indicates an action that has happened repeatedly or continually in the past and is either continuing or just now stopped. The simple past tense, which is what you get when you delete the word have, means the action happened once and is over and done. Removing the word have changes the meaning and emphasis of the sentence.
In the sentence above, removing have makes it sound like there were specific reports that presented views on aspirin, whereas the original sentence means more vaguely that news reports in the past have repeatedly done so. Here is another example:
- I have picked the colors for the baby's room.
- I picked the colors for the baby's room.
Either way, the colors have been picked. However, you might detect more of a sense of accomplishment in the first one because of the sense that it was just now completed, which is one of the meanings of the present perfect tense. The other one emphasizes that the activity is definitely in the past. You could be saying this sentence years after the colors have faded and the child has grown.
In sum, the words has and have are a necessary part of the perfect tenses, and should usually be retained.
About the Author:
Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Essentials of Access 2000" and "Editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.Want help with a grammar issue? Email us your troubles and we'll turn Jennie loose!