| "Read" is a particularly unlucky verb for this because its past participle and imperative form are written the same way. Most other English verbs wouldn't have this particular ambiguity. "Never eaten a Carolina Reaper pepper, but I'm looking forward to my first time." "Never eat a Carolina Reaper pepper; you'll regret it." Wiktionary has a few dozen irregular verbs that could produce an ambiguity like this one: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_irregular_ve... "Never miscast Magic Missile ..." "Never shut a door on someone's finger ..." "Never preset the thermostat to 90 °F before going on vacation..." "Never put an irregular verb in a position where readers might interpret it ambiguously..." ("... but there's a first time for everything, I guess" / "... you won't be happy with the results") |