Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Stolen America's Cup cloaks dropped off at marae

This article is about some special cloaks which are traditionally used for the Haka, the famous Maori war dance. The cloaks were supposed to be worn by the New Zealand crew of the America's Cup, a famous sailing competition, in order to help to win the Cup. Unfortunately they were stolen, just some hours they were going to be sent to the America's Cup base in Spain. But the thieves finally changed their mind and dropped the clothes at Nga Whare Waatea in Mangere where they were found and returned to the rightful owner, the waka logistics organizer Cyril Wright's ute.
There are many different verb forms in this text. Mainly simple past because the article reports of an incident in the past. But you can also find some examples of other verb forms like past passive (were dropped l.8 - nobody knows who dropped the cloaks), present passive (are to be worn l.3 - general conclusion, no person is mentioned), present perfect passive (have been recovered l.2 - connects past and present, no person is mentioned) or past perfect passive (had been handed l.15 - connects two events in the past, no person is mentioned). The use of passive shows that no one knows the thieves of the cloaks. There is one use of will-future (will lead l.4 - event will happen in the future) and some verbs are infinitive forms with to (e.g. to collect l.11 - in connection with 'sent a friend')

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