Young Writers Society

Why, dear God, why do people insist on speaking in the present tense when telling of an experience that happened in the past?

It's more dramatic? =]

When speaking, grammar isn't taken much into consideration. My speaking grammar is unbelievably poor.

Cultural colloquial imprecision, da? ^_~

Inept story-telling device. Bad habit. Charming idiosyncrasy. Any of the previous perhaps.

...Though it might, in the end, be one of the indissoluble mysteries of life.

Claudette wrote:It's more dramatic? =]

Yes.

It's just more involving.

*quickly hides away his story in present tense from DD*

Prokaryote

During grammar-nazi days, I get a headache just going to the store but I guess people don't care, as long as they get the point across.

You don't think about being correct when speaking. When I speak, I drop my aitchies, gs, ts and ds all over the place, say words in what might pass for Cockney or Southern, add in odd words of French and Latin, and throw in the odd quote or two.

So I guess I can't poke fingers.

"So I stood there, right, and then suddenly he bit me and ran away."

"So I'm standing there, right, and then suddenly he bites me and runs away."


I know which I'd rather hear an enigmatic speaker say.

Ofour wrote:"So I stood there, right, and then suddenly he bit me and ran away."

"So I'm standing there, right, and then suddenly he bites me and runs away."


I know which I'd rather hear an enigmatic speaker say.

LOL.

Definitely, Ofour.

An enigmatic speaker?

LOL! For FREAK, I remember telling a story in present tense, just to liven things up. So a character who wasn't very grammatically correct just ranted in first person/present tense. It was awesome.

I wish I spoke in cockney... Always makes me think of Vile Bodies.

Whoops, I meant charismatic.

Durrr durrr bee durrr durrr

Claudette wrote:I wish I spoke in cockney... Always makes me think of Vile Bodies.

Well... you could always pull a Madonna.