Past vs. Passed??

Ah, homophones….”What is a homophone?” you may ask. The stem “homo” means “same,” and the stem “phone” means “sound,” so homophones are different words that sound the same. And two particularly tricky ones are “past” and “passed.” If you are confused, join the club. Even many adults who have lived in the US all their lives get confused on these! Let’s try to untangle them, and we’ll even use some sentences some of our students in Taiwan just created. 

PAST can be an adjective, noun, preposition or adverb! meaning “gone by, over, done with, former.”

Adjective: gone by in time, no longer existing

Now that the rain is past, we can have the picnic!

Noun: a period of time over and finished

History is about the past.

In the past, I lived in Hsinchu.

When she lost her memory, she didn’t remember a thing that happened in the past.

Preposition: to be beyond or  behind something

We drove past the school on our way to church.

Adverb: describes passing from one side to another

We sat still and watched several butterflies fly past.

“PASSED” is the past tense of “to pass.”

Get it? PASSED is a verb, the past tense of “to pass,” which can mean 1. to give someone something (Please pass the salt), 2. to go faster than someone (Try to pass that slow car.)  3. to go by something (You will pass the store on the way to Grandma’s house.) or 4. to successfully pass a test or trial. (After hours of study, Diane passed her test.)

Examples:
She passed me the salt.
He passed me the football, but I dropped it!
I passed my homework to my teacher.
The truck passed us so fast, I was terrified!
Every time we passed a toy store, my brother always whined to go in. (Note the great verb: “whined.”)

Now you try it:
1. We walked _____________ the old church.
2. We __________ the old church on the way to school.
3. The red sports car ___________ me on the highway, because I was going so slow.
4.The red sports car drove __________ me while I was sitting by the road.

Answers:
1. past
2. passed
3. passed
4. past

Now that learning about “past and passed” is in your past, don’t get passed by by other people who know more English than you! Keep building your language skills…and we can help!