I read this sentence in a book recently:
What I should have done is given him the...
(Emphasis mine) I'm not a linguist but I thought it should be:
What I should have done is give him the...
Can anyone tell me which is right and why? Thank you.
Edit:
Going by what most people have said, if the first is grammatically correct (which I do not argue), the explanation I can think of is this: from the first part of the sentence (the subject) What I should have done
, there is a present perfect tense (i.e. have done
). This influences the second part of the sentence (the predicate, I think that's what it is called as I'm not an English student) and makes it a present perfect tense, too (given
, in this case).
Going by this reasoning, as I asked in a comment, this example should be grammatically correct:
What I did was gave him...
I'm sorry if it seems I'm pushing this too far. I'm quite particular about trivial matters.