historical present
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.57 in modern English
24
Scrabble Score
17
Letters
6
Syllables
12
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "In most dialects, the historical present is used quite freely to convey the sense of more vivid narrative, to retell dreams, plots, tell jokes, etc."
- "Cross-linguistically, the historical present tends to be used to increase vividness by substituting the perspective of the ongoing speech situation for that of the narrative."
- "Mr. Rothstein comes in," Scher said, "it must have been about none o'clock. Every night he comes in here [Scher, like so many Broadway habitués, spoke most often in the historical present, rather than the past, tense. Damon Runyon faithfully reproduced this patois.] Regular as clockwork he comes in here."