Participles that may be on their way out

Speaking of non-standard participle use, here are three I think are probably disappearing:

• Run – being replaced by “ran,” as in “I had ran”
• Swum – being replaced by “swam,” as in “I had swam”
• Become – being replaced by “became,” as in “I had became”

I say this because I’ve had 18-year old students to whom “I had ran,” “I had swam,” and “I had became” sound correct. They miss run-swum-become questions on ACT English. 

You can see what they’re doing. They’re “regularizing” the participle, which I think may be the way languages normally evolve (though I don’t know).

With regular verbs, the past tense and the past participle are the same. 

Present	Past	Past participle
Walk	walked	had walked
Enjoy	enjoyed	had enjoyed
Smell	smelled	had smelled

Run, swim, and become are different:

Present	Past	Past participle
Run	ran	had run
Swim	swam	had swum
Become	became	had become

My students’ mistake, which I predict won’t be a mistake not too long from now, is to apply the “past tense = past participle” rule to run, swim, and become: 

Present	Past	Past participle
Run	ran	had ran
Swim	swam	had swam
Become	became	had became

The politician I mentioned was doing the same thing:

Present	Past	Past participle
Go	went	had went

That politician is quite a bit younger than a lot of his colleagues, by the way.