Grammar's Little Helpers

Author: Kelly Huckaby

We use them daily, and the action barely registers in our minds. They help us get our point across in a conversation, allow others to understand our mood, and keep time references under control in our spoken and written words. I'm talking about those single-syllable words known as helping verbs. They are also known as auxiliary or modal verbs, but I like to think of them as "Grammar's Little Helpers".

When a sentence has more than one verb, one is the principal and the other is the auxiliary—the helper. In my mind, it is an honor to be a helper. When I was little, my father was an auxiliary police officer. That meant he "helped" the full-time officers do various aspects of their jobs, such as directing traffic and patrolling at night. My father's example of helping has stuck with me through the years. Helping others has become part of my life. Any word that helps another word do its job better is okay in my book!

What exactly are helping verbs? As mentioned, they are verbs that help the main, or principal, verb.

The most common of "Grammar's Little Helpers" are:

Be
Must
Ought
Can / Could
Shall / Should
Will / Would
May / Might
Have / Has / Had
Do / Does / Did / Done

These verbs are highly irregular. As stand alone verbs, they don't make much sense unless you know what is being expressed. Consider the sentence, "I can!" I can… what? Something is implied, but we don't know what. When we read the preceding sentence, we get a better understanding of what's going on. "Can you bake a cake? I can!"

Let's look at that preceding sentence again: "Can you bake a cake?" If we remove the helping verb "can," the tone of the question changes from innocent to sarcastic. "Can" helps the reader to understand the mood of the question. That can be quite important in our writing. If a reader misinterprets our mood they will not understand the heart of our words, and they may not finish reading. If that happens, we will lose readers and eventually income.

Did you catch the helping verbs in that last paragraph? Since I was speculating about something that was yet to happen, I used the helping verb "will" to refer to that possible future event (losing readers and income). It's just as easy to show past events with helping verbs too: "He has lost readers." Without the help of the word "has," the sentence changes to a more current time frame. With the help of "has," it shows the action in the past.

Would you like more examples of how these little words help? Try taking them out of the following sentences and you'll see just how much 'work' they do!

Right: "You might write the next best-seller."
Wrong: "You write the next best-seller."

Right: "I must leave now."
Wrong: "I leave now."

Right: "What do you see?"
Wrong: "What you see?"

Right: "Shall I call for pizza?"
Wrong: "I call for pizza?"

Without the helping verbs, they are fragmented—like the improper sentences my children used as toddlers. Just as adults help children learn to speak properly, helping verbs help sentences to read properly.

Don't be shy about using "Grammar's Little Helpers". They will help you form the voice, tense, and mood within your work. I don't know about you, but I can use all the help I can get!