Does anyone know the term for the tense of speech that I've noticed popping up more and more frequently over the last decade or so? I first noticed it in sports but now it's everywhere.
It's something like stating a what-if as a present fact. Like, instead of saying "If he caught the pass, he could run it in for a touchdown," people say "he gets that pass and he goes all the way in for a touchdown."
I'm actually even struggling to come up with more examples because it's become so commonplace now.
I think it's been around a long time. Maybe you notice it in sports commentary not because it's coming into style, but because it has gone out of style?
Another factor might be that it fits in with how the present tense used to narrate replays. "Jones fakes the post route, gets separation, and the pass goes right over his finger tips. He catches that ball, he's gone!"
I think using the present tense in sports commentary helps increase the sense of action and immersion for viewers and listeners. It certainly does for me.
In modern casual English it's very common to use present indicative in scenarios you would traditionally use other tenses (perfect or future) or moods (conditional or subjunctive).
That construction is simply dropping an implied "if". It's a rhetorical trick, bordering on dishonest - it's trying to paint a false picture and make something sound weightier or more exciting than it is, by making you think about a hypothetical as if it actually happened when it didn't.
Does anyone know the term for the tense of speech that I've noticed popping up more and more frequently over the last decade or so? I first noticed it in sports but now it's everywhere.
It's something like stating a what-if as a present fact. Like, instead of saying "If he caught the pass, he could run it in for a touchdown," people say "he gets that pass and he goes all the way in for a touchdown."
I'm actually even struggling to come up with more examples because it's become so commonplace now.
Does anyone know what I'm talking about?