The old pirate: simple past and past continuous

Two tenses to tell a story: the background and the events.

A story in the past uses two tenses. The past continuous paints the background: what was going on. The simple past tells the events: what happened. Click ▶ to hear the sentences of the joke.

Past continuous

was / were + verb-ing

The background: an action in progress at a moment in the past.

An old pirate was sitting alone at a table in a bar.
He was drinking a glass of rum and smoking a pipe.
He was wearing an eye patch.
Some sharks were circling the ship.
And I was fighting another pirate.

was with I, he, she, it · were with you, we, they
Negative: he wasn't sitting · Question: Was he sitting?

Simple past

verb-ed or irregular verb

The events: finished actions, one after the other. They move the story forward.

A young sailor came into the bar and sat down with the old pirate, and they began to chat.
The young sailor asked: “How did you lose your leg, sir?”
I fell overboard.
Me men tried to pull me back up onto me ship.
He cut it off!

Negative: he didn't lose · Question: How did you lose…? (did + base verb)

Together in one sentence

The past continuous is the long action; the simple past is the short event that interrupts it.

“I was eating a grapefruit…
…and a drop of juice went into me eye.”

Patrick says it with when: “I was boarding a ship when another sailor cut off me hand with a sword.”

The irregular verbs of the story

come → camesit → satbegin → beganfall → fellget → gotcut → cutgo → wenthave → hadlose → losteat → ate

Now practise: simple past or past continuous? →

All the activities of the old pirate