Definition:
A verb tense that expresses action in the present time, habitual actions, or general truths.
See also:
- Backshift
- Gnomic Present
- Habitual Present
- Historical Present
- Literary Present
- Present Perfect
- Present Progressive
- Present Perfect Progressive
- Using the Present Perfect
Examples and Observations:
- "The general knowledge of time on the island depends, curiously enough, on the direction of the wind."
(John Millington Synge) - "Hermits have no peer pressure."
(Steven Wright) - "I loop a bale string onto the calf's exposed foot, knot the string short around a stick which my son then holds. I press my hand gently into the birth canal until I find the second foot and then, a little further on, a nose. I loop a string around the second foot, fasten on another stick for a handhold. And then we pull."
(Wendell Berry, "A Few Words for Motherhood," 1982) - "The buses rumble like green juggernauts through the snow that sifts down in the dusk. White house walls rise through the dusky snow. Snow is never more beautiful than in the city. It is wonderful in Paris to stand on a bridge across the Seine looking up through the softly curtaining snow past the grey bulk of the Louvre, up the river spanned by many bridges and bordered by the grey houses of old Paris to where Notre Dame squats in the dusk."
(Ernest Hemingway, The Toronto Star, 1923; rpt. in By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, ed. by William White. Scribner's, 1967)) - "As we grow old, the beauty steals inward."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson) - "Animals--lions and zebras and beautiful snakes--live vividly in the present tense, in a bright unconsciousness of time. That is their innocence and their limitation."
(Lance Morrow, "The Trouble With The Present Tense," Time magazine, March 30, 1998) - Functions and Effects of the Present Tense
"The present tense designates action occurring at the time of speaking or writing: She lives in Toronto. It is used to indicate habitual actions: I exercise every morning. It is also used to express general truths (Time flies) and scientific knowledge (Light travels faster than sound). . . .
"Present tense also has some special uses:- to indicate future time when used with time expressions:
We travel to Italy next week.
Michael returns in the morning. - to describe works of literature and the arts:
Hamlet avoids avenging his father's death for one reason."
"I discovered as I began to write how delicious the present tense is . . .. Action takes on a wholly different, flickering quality; thought and feeling and event are brought much closer together. And so the present tense proved to be a happy one and I wrote on and on."
(John Updike, The New York Times Book Review, Oct. 5, 1990)
"Philip Pullman and Philip Hensher claimed that the use of present tense [in novels] is becoming a cliche. . . .
"The six authors listed for this year's [Man Booker Prize] are Peter Carey, Andrea Levy, Howard Jacobson, Tom McCarthy, Damon Galgut and Emma Donoghue. The first three authors' novels are in the past tense while the others written in the more 'fashionable' style.
"Hensher, whose novel The Northern Clemency was Booker shortlisted in 2008, said that writers were mistaken by thinking that using the present tense would make their writing more vivid. He said: 'Writing is vivid if it is vivid. A shift in tense won't do that for you.'"
(Laura Roberts, "Philip Pullman and Philip Hensher Criticise Booker Prize for Including Present Tense Novels." The Daily Telegraph, Sep. 11, 2010) - to indicate future time when used with time expressions:
Also Known As: simple present
