Lingua Franca is a blog at the Chronicle of Higher Education that I enjoy reading especially for Anne Curzan‘s and Geoffrey Pullum‘s excellent posts, but all of the contributors write about language, and so I’m a regular reader.

Today, there was a post by Ben Yagoda with an interesting title, “Ben Yagoda Gets Sick of the Historical Present“.  The title caught my attention for a number of reasons.  First, it contains a verb that would in all likelihood normally not have appeared in a title that was not trying to mock the use of the historic present (I would expect the title elsewhere to have been “Ben Yagoda Sick of the Historical Present”).  In addition, it mentioned the historical present (the use of verbs in present tense to refer to actions in the past, commonly used at intense moments in story-telling, for example, “So then he grabs the knife and stabs the guy with it”).  As a discourse analyst, especially one who studies narratives, I was excited to hear his take on this feature of discourse.  And then I start (yes, start) reading. Read more ›