One of my ESL students wrote this:
This is how I imagine it went down:
Grammar stuff:
Of course, the student meant to say “I went to the park”
Aside from the obvious verb tense error, it is incorrect to use a noun (aside from a gerund) as a direct object — i.e. without a preposition first*– after the verb go. Also, in American English, it’s often fine to use go + the bare infinitive (e.g. I’ll go park the car), so in this ESL student’s sentence, “park” looks more like a verb than a noun.
*P.S., before you break out the pitchforks, in the sentence “he went home,” home is an adverb.
Boggleton Drive 
I have a question. Consider the sentence “I go shopping” or “I went hiking”. I believe that shopping and hiking are gerunds, and they act as nouns instead of adverbs. Am I right? Or are those sentences grammatically incorrect?
I look forward to readin you future posts.
You’re absolutely right. Gerunds can act as a direct object of the verb “go”. As far as I know, no other type of noun can. I could be wrong, though. Thanks for the comment.
Um, in a less than high-brow response, when *I* saw your highlighted sentence, I figured there would be a picture of two friends canoodling in a 1960’s car…
Is “park” some kind of euphemism for “canoodle” ?
It is! I was thinking the exact same thing. The term is even used in Back to the Future, so you know it’s legit. That scene when Marty is about to make out with his mom. Shudder.
“… two friends canoodling in a 1960′s car …”
… parked beside the edge of a cliff that has a spectacular view of the moon and stars? 😛
That was a wee bit more poetic than what I imagined, but yes. 😀
I decided to go for the fuzzy, romantic PG version than the more explicit R! 😛
I was envisioning canoodling as well. (For the record, I love that word! Canoodling, not park.) You definitely took the higher road, and it was still funny to look at the pictures of the parking of the car and then the fist bump.
I agree with funnyortragic. Expected canoodling.
I’ve seen the word “canoodle” thrice today and it’s already lost all meaning. Canoodle. Canoodle.
I loved the fist bump. Laughed out loud at my desk at work, like a big dork.
Thanks. Sometimes when people try to fist bump me, I’ll go for a high-five, and we’ll get some shoulder joint ball-and-socket handshake of awkwardness going. Always fun.
Hilarious!
Seemed like a rather mundane activity to be the focal point of a weekend.
Too much excitement, I can’t take it.
More in this series to come 🙂