So I’m standing here and this guy walks up and I say, “Hey! I’m standing here.” But he keeps walking and steps right on my foot…
I frequently hear people in an irritable humour speak in past tense when complaining about something that happened to them in the past. Seems to be especially when they feel that someone has harmed them. They even seem to take on, for want of a more precise expression, a working-class New York accent.
Dramatic immediacy? It makes it sound like it’s happening right now.
It works…sometimes…in fiction, because it (slightly) reduces your sense of security. If you say, “Han Solo faced down Greedo, blaster to blaster,” well, it’s past. It’s done. We’re secure that Solo lives. But “Han Solo faces down Greedo, blaster to blaster.” We don’t know how it ends; we can feel more of a vicarious thrill. Who will shoot first?
Present tense narrative is used particularly cleverly in “Finn: A Novel” by Jon Clinch. Essentially, there are two scenes that are fairly similar, one “now” and one in a flashback to the past. By narrating in the present tense, the author keeps you guessing which of the two events he’s referring to. Deucedly clever!
From the title, I had a different example in mind from the OP: If you pick up a paper and ready about something terrible that happened last week, we think, “This is terrible!” Not “This was terrible!”
Related?
When criminals confess to certain crimes, they often use present tense rather than past. They speak in 3rd person too. The latter is considered a distancing mechanism.
It’s pretty common in storytelling, and not just for bad things. There are different opinions on why it’s used, but mostly it seems to be done to bring a sense of immediacy to the crisis point of the story. Both a way of calling attention to the important bit and a device to make you feel suspense along with the narrator.
The Lexicon Valley podcast had a discussion of it awhile ago. I can’t access that right now because I’m on my phone. Worth digging up if you’re interested, though.
In French they usually use the present tense when talking about the historical past. I always suspected it was because it was too much trouble to learn the passé simple conjugation, which hardly anyone ever uses. Zut alors, just use le présent, which everybody knows already.
Great refs on historical present–thanks. I suspect the use of it by confessing perps stems from different motivations than desired drama, etc, but maybe not, maybe not.
Specific the the OP’s mention of a working class New York accent, I think that’s due to a few highly influential / quotable pop-culture bits, especially from stand-up comics.
I could be completely mistaken, but I recall Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, and Andrew Dice Clay all using that manner of speaking a lot.
I couldn’t tell you why other people do it – likely for narrative immediacy – but I do it because I’m an eideticker, and I consider mental snapshots (or video, or audio, or spatial paths; I work in several different modes) to be “running right now” when I check them. The event may have been in the past, but I’m replaying it as I’m talking. My brain considers the action I’m describing to be happening in the present ongoing tense, as you would if you were providing commentary on a live video feed.
I also do it consistently when writing up critiques or psych profiles of the various people I research. It knocks some people for a loop. Every so often I get asked if I’m aware that people like Richard Feynman and Johnny Cash are presently dead. I generally do know, but when I write the things up, I’m describing observations I’m still in the process of making, hence the present tense.
ETA: Both modes are not unlike the techniques used in the show Crossing Jordan or CSI when someone decides to re-enact a murder to help analyze what happened. The narration on those is in present tense, while the actors go through the reconstructed motions of what might have happened.