Long Story Short...

Somewhere between Chaucer and Shakespeare, the English language shed a feather of the plumage it had acquired since Beowulf. As a result, many English sentences became shorter.

The indicative Simple tense lost its helping verb, though luckily the moulting stopped there. Interrogative and negative forms remained the same, while the longer indicative form got sidelined to express emphasis.

Every disadvantage holds an advantage. (Johan Cruyff)

As such changes don't happen overnight, there was a considerable period of overlap. In the not-too-distant past, a speaker of English could use “I like fish” and “I do like fish” interchangeably, without emphasis.

The longer form lingered for a while before finally replacing what I imagine must have been an awkward “I really, really, really like fish” for expressing emphasis. Now that's an improment, right?

The Dark Side

As Dutch football legend and all-round guru Johan Cruyff used to say: "Every disadvantage holds an advantage" – and vice versa, of course. I applaud the Simple tense for being concise, and for its role in changing how we express emphasis. On the darker side, Simple became an exception that sets a terrible example.

Just think of it: how many English verb forms show only a single verb, without the assistance of a helping verb? As it turns out, we traditionally take the odd one out as our starting point. High time we started by showing beginners the typical pattern instead of the single-verb exception. That consideration is at the heart of the One Rule approach.

One Rule, to rule them all...

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