Would you say '

'He dived into the swimming pool'

or

'He dove into the swimming pool'

or

'He did a dive into the swimming pool'.

I'm sure the last one is correct and it sounds right - 2 doesn't sound right at all, the first one sounds sort of okay, but grammatically wrong.

???

Katerina

According to Fowler (and I'd agree) 'dived' is right, 'dove' is (mainly regional) American English.

Emma

<Added>

To my own ear no. 3 sounds a bit odd, perhaps because of the alliteration.

That's interesting - I didn't think 'dove' even existed, but i often have an urge to use it.
p

I think it's a way of forming the past tense which happens with other verbs - strive/strove thrive/throve - but dive happens to go like skive/skived and live/lived. And of course there's 'striven', but not 'diven', just to keep the poor unfortunates learning English on their toes...

Emma

Thanks Emma

K x

I'd definitely say 'dived'. He 'did a dive' sounds a bit odd - brings to mind 'he did a poo' (sorry, but it does).

Deb