XClose

UCL News

Home
Menu

The present tense is perfect English for history, sports commentary – and jokes

18 September 2023

“Many of the best jokes I heard at school also used the present tense. It is the English language’s way of conveying immediacy and putting the hearer directly in the action,” said Professor John O’Regan (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society) on using the present tense.

Read: Guardian