Whoops! "Panama Choses"??

Here is an Associated Press online headline from this past weekend:

"Panama choses new president amid canal expansion"

Verb forms can be tricky in English. They do not always follow logical patterns, but it is important to know which form to use for present tense or past tense and also which form to use with a helping verb.

In the case of the verb CHOOSE, the present tense form has two o's. The forms of the verb are CHOOSE, CHOSE, CHOSEN.

In this sentence, the writer needed the present tense form CHOOSE with an added "s" for the 3rd person (he, she it) slot in the sentence. The headline should read as follows:

Panama chooses new president amid canal expansion

If Panama had chosen its president a few days earlier, the headline writer might have said, "Panama chose new president amid canal expansion."

Also notice that, when this sentence is expressed in the past tense, the verb is simply chose (with no added "s").

If any of my readers would like to see a blog post that lists the basic forms of commonly used verbs, along with some examples of their use, please let me know in the comment section.