Phelps loses touch of his grammar

In winning the seventh of his eight gold medals in the Olympic "Water Cube" in Beijing, Michael Phelps recounted his proper choice of taking one final stroke before touching the wall. In taking "a final half stroke" instead of gliding as had his Serbian opponent in an adjacent lane,

Phelps secured first place by a "finger tip" in .01 second, the most narrow margin possible in swimming competition. While his choice of strategy was correct, Phelps' choice of verb tense in describing the strategy would have left him off the medal stand. Phelps said:

"If I had glided, I would have came up short."

Phelps should have said: "If I had glided, I would have come up short."

The proper sequence: The verb phrase following the pluperfect or past perfect tense, "had glided," employs a past participle, "would have come up." In this case, the second verb phrase is in the potential mood expressing something probable or possible. That is, he probably would not have achieved first place because his chief competitor was only .01 second behind. Regardless of the mood of the verb, the second verb phrase still requires the use of the past participle "come," not the simple past "came."

"When I made that final half-stroke, I thought I'd lost it there," said Phelps, who won the 2004 Olympic final by a similar margin, edging American rival Ian Crocker by just .04 seconds. "But I guess that was the difference in the race. I'm kind of at a loss for words."

No, Michael. Not a loss for words, just one lost past participle.

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