The present tense is light or lighting: I light a candle. I am lighting a candle.
But what about the past tense? It is lit or lighted? I lit the candle or I lighted the candle?
What about the past participle form (or present perfect tense)? Is it have lit or have lighted?
You choose. Both forms are correct and totally acceptable in both American English and British English.
So….is this a well-lit blog post—or is it well lighted?
Once again either one is correct when used as an adjective, although right now the American usage favors lighted for the adjectival use.
For example:
Watch out for the lighted candle on the table.
However….Watch out for the lit candle on the table…is also correct.
As always, if you are using the same word repeatedly in the same piece of writing, be consistent. Choose one way and stick with it.
………………………………….
While we are on the subject of light…..
There are two words that are so similar that, frankly, I never even thought about the difference until recently, when I was corrected!
The words are the same except for one letter, but they have totally different meanings. And although one of the words would seem to have an extra syllable, they are generally pronounced the same way:
Lightening and lightning.
One word has an e in the middle; the other doesn’t.
Lightening is a form of the verb to lighten, either in the sense of color or weight:
- I am lightening my hair from brown to blonde.
- I am lightening the load by taking the heavy books out of the box.
Lightning, without the e, isn’t a verb at all (although I have heard it used as one). It is a noun referring to the streaks of light in the sky that come along with thunder. Please don’t use it as a verb, by the way! (It was lightning out last night.) I don’t think it’s right….but correct me if I’m wrong!
You should take part in a contest for one of the best blogs online.
I will recommend this site!
Thanks!
Hi there everyone, it’s my first pay a quick visit at this site, and
piece of writing is actually fruitful designed for me, keep up posting these articles or reviews.
Fine way of describing, and nice post to take information concerning my presentation subject, which i am going to present in school.
Good post from your well-lit site again, Arlene. I have a question for your blog. Which is better, I live in an island or I live on an island? I run into this a lot, because I lived on Guam or is it I lived in Guam for a number of years?
Wow, that is a good one. I think you would definitely say I live in Hawaii, rather than I live on Hawaii, yet it doesn’t sound right to say I live in an island — you live ON an island. Ah! I think that is the distinction! You live ON earth, but IN California. So you live ON an island, but IN Guam. You live ON a mountain, but IN California.
What about:
The well-lit hallway provided a lighted living room.
Hi Jenny – Either use is fine, and the way you have used them is similar, so I would use the same word. The only distinction I can think of is the one I brought up in the post, where lighted is usually used when an adjective. So….lit is more of a past tense action. I lit the candle. Lighted is more descriptive. The room was well-lighted. However, apparently there is little distinction at all, or none. Use whatever you like, but I wouldn’t make the distinction you did because you used them the same way — as adjectives.
Hi, Arlene,
From 1975 (in Cupertino) until its SF Opera Plaza store closed in 2006, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books was a popular Bay Area bookstore. Maybe the name came from an Ernest Hemingway story published in 1933 — A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Other than that, I would say popular usage would be “a well-lit room,” although I have no statistics to back up that claim.
One of my taglines is that I’m a “lightning-fast” copyeditor. If I said “lightening-fast,” wouldn’t that presume that at some point I had been “darkening-fast”? LindaJay
Yes, I know of that bookstore, and there is also a grammar book with a similar title “Clean, Well-Lighted Sentences,” obviously taken from the store title. I think you are right on popular usage right now. As far as being a lightening fast copyeditor — going blonde, are we???
I have always used ‘lit’ as past simple and past participle of ‘light’. However, I use ‘highlighted’ as past of ‘highlight’. I have never heard anyone saying ‘highlit’. Would that be correct? It just sounds weird to my ears.
I have never heard highlit used for the past tense, and my research doesn’t show it exists as the past tense.Since adding -ed at the end of a word to form the tense is “regular,” I would think things would move in that direction: lighted rather than lit, dreamed rather than dreamt, etc.
I still prefer ‘learnt’ and ‘dreamt’ to their ‘-ed’ counterparts. For now at least.