Just another 2 cents -- you're almost up to a nickel now !

I'll be glad to help you with this but I'd also like to see you find this out for yourself. many times you just need to know what to call the problem before you can solve it.

But I can’t resist the opportunity to talk about these rather difficult verbs: awake, awaken, wake, waken. According to the Columbia Guide to Standard American English (see below), the following sentence is correct.

"The patient was awoken in the OR and taken to the recovery room."

The principal parts of awake are awake (present), awoke or awaked (past), awaked or awoken (past participle), and awaking (present participle). Remember that helping verbs are used with the past and present participles, so "was awoken" or "was awaked" are correct as is "was awakened"—the principal parts being awaken (present), awakened (past), awakened (past participle), and awakening (present participle). However, since "was awoken" is standard English, there is no reason to change it to "was awakened."

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. (Kenneth G. Wilson [1923–]) has this to say:

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awake, awaken (vv.)

Both verbs are Standard. Awake’s principal parts are in divided usage: its past tense is either awoke or awaked, and the past participle is either awaked or awoken. Awake is both transitive, as in She awoke me at six, and intransitive, as in I awoke at six. Awaken is a regular weak verb (awaken, awakened, awakened) with essentially the same meaning as awake; awaken too is both transitive (He awakened her at six) and intransitive (She awakened at six).

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quote:

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wake, waken (vv.)

The principal parts of wake, one set strong, the other weak, are in divided usage in Standard English. For the past tense the strong verb form woke is a bit more frequent than the weak waked: Yesterday I woke [waked] early; for past participle the strong woken is a bit more frequent than the weak waked: She had always woken [waked] before six.

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. has this to say:

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wake, waken and awake, awaken
USAGE NOTE: The pairs wake, waken and awake, awaken have formed a bewildering array since the Middle English period. All four words have similar meanings, though there are some differences in use. Only wake is used in the sense "to be awake," as in expressions like waking (not wakening) and sleeping, every waking hour. Wake is also more common than waken when used together with up, and awake and awaken never occur in this context: She woke up (rarely wakened up; never awakened up or awoke up). Some writers have suggested that waken should be used only transitively (as in The alarm wakened him) and awaken only intransitively (as in He awakened at dawn), but there is ample literary precedent for usages such as He wakened early and They did not awaken her. In figurative senses awake and awaken are more prevalent: With the governor's defeat the party awoke to the strength of the opposition to its position on abortion. The scent of the gardenias awakened my memory of his unexpected appearance that afternoon years ago.

REGIONAL NOTE: Regional American dialects vary in the way that certain verbs form their principal parts. Northern dialects seem to favor forms that change the internal vowel in the verb—hence dove for the past tense of dive, and woke for wake: They woke up with a start. Southern dialects, on the other hand, tend to prefer forms that add an –ed to form the past tense and the past participle of these same verbs: The children dived into the swimming hole. The baby waked up early.

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Your dictator might be from the South!

[ 02-06-2004: Message edited by: ebadrake ]

Ellen, I am most grateful for the work you put into this answer. I am afraid that sometimes this stuff makes me think I am doing math

Anyway, the physician IS from the south, and I transcribed it "was awoken" in the end.

Again, thank you all so much for the response. Sometimes, I just have to get the dust out of my brain

[ 02-06-2004: Message edited by: Squirl1228 ]

further down in another document:

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The past participle of “awake” is also awakened, but it is not common in Standard English. Some British dictionaries (for example Collins English-Polish and Polish -English) accept this form. Longman “Dictionary of Common Errors” claims that awakened can be used only in literary British English.

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El, I had a feeling you posted the 'verb tense' chart so we could help ourselves. pardon if I read too much into that. and I realize you can't have every irregular verb conjugated and this was an especially difficult one. throw in the passive voice, irregular verb, and past participle and it turns into a real head-scratcher.

maybe people look at that chart like I look at computer instructions and they fall quickly into a coma. if it helps at all, maybe by taking the verb {awake} you're fretting over out of the equation and look up the auxilary verb 'was.' if you do an 'edit' and 'find' and look for 'was,' the first time 'was' appears in the table is under 'past participle.' usually you can enter "past participle of (verb)" into Google and find your answer. sometimes this formula for a verb tense won't work but it happened to pan out for this one.

it takes a while to type out your thought processes but it also gives everyone an idea where you're having trouble.

here are a few links for irrregular verbs, passive voice, and past participles. hope they're helpful.
http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/verbs.htm http://www.eslfocus.com/grammarfolder/irregverbgroups.html http://geocities.com/gwyni_99/pastpart.html
http://www.usingenglish.com/handouts/intermediate/the-passive-voice.html http://english-zone.com/index.html http://www.english-zone.com/verbs/pssvchrt.html http://english-zone.com/verbs/1irr-verb.html
http://mit.imoat.net/handbook/toc.htm

again, apologies if anyone's feathers were ruffled. it was not my intention.

[ 02-07-2004: Message edited by: mptang ]

I've contacted Annie about adding it to the previous page on verb tenses. And I did post that chart as a general reference as well as something I could point to if we had further questions about verbs. You weren't reading too much into it.

Thanks for the enlightenment (read: correction). This truly is a wonderful place for continual learning, as understanding the 'whys' of stuff (for lack of a more formal-sounding word springing to mind) is far better, for me at least, than just being told the 'whats.'

quote:

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Northern dialects seem to favor forms that change the internal vowel in the verb—hence dove for the past tense of dive, and woke for wake: They woke up with a start. Southern dialects, on the other hand, tend to prefer forms that add an –ed to form the past tense and the past participle of these same verbs:

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I agree with your sentiment about wanting to know "why" things are the way they are. That's why I always try to explain why as well as to cite an authority—although sometimes I worry about going on too long. Some people think I'm stuck up or full of myself, but I'm not. I just love knowing things and am eager to share.

(Is my Southern showin' tonight or what?
)

[ 02-07-2004: Message edited by: Jen ]