ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by fruit walls. We wouldn't recommend building

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your house out of them, unless you're a fan of fruit flies.

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How would you correct the following selection from the passage? Does it need correcting?

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Sometimes it can be tough to pin down the right verb tense in a sentence--especially

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when it seems at first glance that the correct tense doesn't match the other verbs. Here,

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for example, the right tense for the verb is the present tense, even though the rest

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of the verbs in the sentence are in the past. A little confusing, we know, but if we keep

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our cool, we can sort out the reasoning behind it.

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The culprit is the relative adverb "when." We know that "when" is a relative adverb

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because the relative phrase it introduces modifies the verb "released" by describing

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the way in which the coconut's seed-release happens. This particular relative adverb phrase

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makes the present tense appropriate by speaking in a general sense about the fruit wall's

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decay. (We hate it when our fruit walls decay--just sayin'.)

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Since we know we're in need of a present tense verb, we can cross out choice (A) because

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"decayed" is in the past.

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We might as well go ahead and take (D) out of the running too. "Decaying" is in the

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present progressive tense, and all we need is the simple present. (Though when a fruit

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wall decays, nothing seems simple.) Choices (B) and (C) are both in the present

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tense, so we'll have to find another way to choose between them.

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Ah, it looks like (B), "decay," is plural, while (C) "decays," is singular. Since

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"wall" is singular, the verb that follows needs to be singular too. Therefore, choice

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(C) is the correct answer.

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It's always a sad occasion when a coconut decays, but that's when we mosey over to the

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tree and get a new one.

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