I have noticed people increasingly using the present tense when talk about the past.
"I am going to the park when a dog jumps on me." vs "I was going to the park when a dog jumped on me."
I find it irritating for some reason but am I wrong?
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1Not everyone likes the historical present, but it's perfectly legitimate, even customary in some cases. – choster Mar 20 '17 at 22:33
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apologies for the duplicate but after searching I didn't find the existing question. – Channing Walton Mar 22 '17 at 08:36
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No worries! It's not always easy to find duplicates, especially if you're not familiar with the terminology, but this question will now be retained as a pointer to anyone who searches on the terms you use. – choster Mar 22 '17 at 17:10
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Hopefully there is some context that shows what they are doing: narrating the past as though it was being replayed, like a movie. This is meant to make the story more vivid, although their mistake is that the images are much clearer to them, since they use pre-lingual memory.
AmI
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