Time Slip

To relate past experiences, a writer can choose the past tense or decide to tell the story in the present tense to add some immediacy and let the reader more directly participate in the action. Whatever the writer decides, however, he must be consistent.
It is possible to write a biographical piece in present tense and tell the reader that Jeff Bridges “comes into the movies in the 1970s.” However, the writer then cannot continue this sentence by referring to the 1970s as the time “when the battles over Vietnam were raging” ("The Dude Plumbs His Soul"/NYT 2/28). Both verbs (to come and to be) must be in the same tense, whether present tense to make the moment more immediate or past tense to indicate that the 1970s lie far behind us.
Danielle Pergament wrote down her own experiences while traveling through Tuscany. One of the local wine growers she met on the way was Mr. Brandli, who “speaks emphatically and at great, great length about the virtues of small farms. ‘Once you see firsthand how the food is made,’ he said, ‘it will taste different to you.’” He speaks cannot be followed by he said. Moreover, Mrs. Pergament clearly relates her experiences in the past tense, continuing, “As we were talking, half a dozen pigs, muddy and playful, came trotting up. These were the renowned cinta senese pigs, indigenous to Tuscany, named for the white belt around their bellies, and famously flavorful. Not that I could imagine eating one, once I saw how cute they were.” The last verb were, however, would need to be present tense since the cinta senese are cute in general, not just at the moment Mrs. Pergament saw them. General truths, however, are always expressed in present tense.
Therefore, that “Elliot Schrage, who oversees Facebook’s global communications and public policy strategy, said it was a good thing that young people are thinking about what they put online” is wrong. It is a good thing. Even in reported speech, general truths require the present tense, and it is a general truth that this heightened awareness is a sign of a growing responsibility for one’s “digital reputation” ("A Tell-All Generation Learns to Keep Things Offline"/NYT 5/9).
Ms. Henry, a new union leader, also shows a sense of responsibility. “I feel this ominous responsibility to take the union to the next level,” Ms Henry … said in an interview in her office, which was filled with union and feminist posters ("New Union Leader Sees Group as More of a Political Powerhouse"/NYT 5/9). In fact, her office is filled with posters since they most likely were not put up just to impress the reporter and taken down as soon as the interview was over.
But back to Tuscany and Mrs. Pergament’s travels. After tasting Mr. Brandli’s wine, she “drove to Bagno Vignoni, a medieval village built on thermal waters from an aquifer and popular since the Roman empire. The town square is a giant pool fed by volcanically heated water bubbling from the depths, steaming in the winter air, and the village has its share of day spas that use the water. A hot bath isn’t so appealing during an August heat wave, but on a blustery day in December, it was perfect.” The details about the town are correctly stated in present tense since they are general truths, and so is the fact that a bath in steaming water is not appealing in August. But by the same token it is indeed perfect in December ("Tuscany without the crowd"/NYT 3/7).
A perfect companion to Italian wine is classical music. For Robert Sadin, the producer of "The Art of Love," "medieval music and Machaut in particular represent a time when classical music had not yet become classical music. There is a certain mood of intense pathos that you see in most classical-music performances, and Machaut doesn't have that. His music seemed more in touch with the way we live; it seemed very close." If there is a connection between Machaut’s music and the way we live (now), then the music seems in touch with our life and seems very close - unless the music actually seemed to be in touch with the way people lived in the Middle Ages ("Forsaking 'Authenticity'"/WSJ 3/30).

A very detailed overview on the use of tenses can be found here.

Our virtual world

vir•tu•al (adj.):
1. Existing or resulting in essence or effect though not in actual fact, form, or name (American Heritage Dictionary); being such in essence or effect though not formally recognized or admitted: “a virtual dictator” (Merriam Webster); having most properties, the appearance, essence, or effect, of something without being that thing (Business dictionary).
2. Existing in the mind, especially as a product of the imagination (American Heritage Dictionary); in philosophy defined as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real (Wikipedia).
3. In Computer Science: Created, simulated, or carried on by means of a computer or computer network: virtual conversations in a chatroom. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Start looking for the word virtual, and it really is everywhere. And yet, it means only that something looks like the real thing without in fact being it. Even virtual conversations are not real conversations since they are carried out via computer networks whereas the word conversation in fact means “the spoken exchange of thoughts, opinions, and feelings” (American Heritage Dictionary) and derives from the Latin conversare, to live with, keep company.
In essence or effect though not in actual fact, “To clear the Broadway theater district at curtain time on Saturday night is …a virtual military operation” (Frank Rich in the NYT on 5/9/2010). What city officials had to do after the Times Square bomb threat so that “the crossroads of the world looked like a ghost town” might indeed have appeared to be a military operation without in fact being one.
A mix between a "product of the imagination" and "something created or carried on by means of a computer" is the "virtual ownership" of an art object that recently sold for around $ 6,000. The buyer's "ownership would be tentative: the technical innards of ‘A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter’ carr[y] a program that would relist the thing on eBay every week, forever. Indeed, the terms and conditions for submitting a bid clearly stipulated that the device must be connected to the Internet, constantly trying to resell itself at a higher price to someone else. ..Part of what [the buyer] Terence Spies found compelling about ‘A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter’ was how it encapsulated not simply the way people feel about the value of art specifically but also about value in general. ‘Things have become much more virtual and much more detached,’ he says.” “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” is created and carried on by means of a computer. At the same time, it also seems to be – or at least represents - a product of the imagination. The piece “kind of says something about the way people buy and sell things now,” [Spies] continues. “We live in a world where you can build a successful billion-dollar Silicon Valley company selling imaginary cows to people” (“Just Priceless”).
The same symbiosis of meanings is exemplified by one GPS-addict’s observation that “I slowly began to spend more time concentrating on the virtual streetscape than the real one.” The GPS's virtual streetscape is created by means of computers, yet it also sometimes is a mere illusion. After all, the author remembers that one time he found “a stream of cars headed straight at me on a one-lane street. … I could hear TomTom’s voice calmly demanding that I continue to drive the wrong way up the one-way street” (“Turn off GPS”).
But what is the DJIA’s “virtual freefall for about 15 minutes on Thursday” (WSJ 5/9)? Had it the “properties, appearance, essence, or effect, of [a freefall] without being that thing?” Was it “a product of the imagination?” Was it “created or simulated by means of a computer network?” Even though The Washington Post seems to believe the latter since "Computer programs designed to make lightning-fast decisions, based on complex mathematical rules, or algorithms, about what to buy and sell made massive trades without human input" (5/8/10), "Heads of the biggest U.S. trading venues could provide no clear reason for last week’s stock- market selloff in meetings today with the Securities and Exchange Commission" (Businessweek 5/10/10). Whatever its causes, the freefall was real, not virtual, as many investors certainly can attest.
Indeed, the word virtual is very often misused. Sentences like “A prototype version of ‘smart’ sunglasses that can allow wearers to instantly change the color of their lenses to virtually any hue of the rainbow” (Live Science 3/27/07), or “Earn cash back virtually everywhere you go” (American Express) use virtually simply to make a promise when in fact there is none. If anybody sued American Express because he did not earn 3% of his gas purchase at a filling stating in Timbuktu, American Express would most likely claim that it never said he in fact would earn cash everywhere. Similarly, “It’s virtually certain that the money could have been better spent” (The Daily Aztec 5/10), means nothing. Maybe it’s almost certain, but it’s certainly not really certain.
Similarly uncertain may be how effective virtual education is in which students communicate with the teacher via computer networks. Does it have “most properties, the appearance, and essence [of education] without being that thing”? Anyway, like many other schools, Memorial University attempts to “appeal to an ever-growing technologically savvy student population” and its “Centre for Career Development (CCD) went virtually everywhere this past year, introducing several online tools to help students and alumni find jobs.” The Centre certainly didn’t go anywhere. It simply went virtual in many of its pursuits, “From tweaking resumes and cover letters, to brushing up on interview skills and learning how to go about a job search, the CCD has taken its career advice online” (Memorial University website).

Visit some more examples of not so real things.

sub-'junc-tive

President Obama was scheduled to be in central New Jersey to talk about the economy, but he will not be in central New Jersey today. The trip, likely involving a factory tour, brief chat with workers and spoken remarks in front of assembled TV cameras, was quietly canceled over the weekend. With the evolving enormity of the Gulf oil spill becoming apparent, that already-announced midweek New Jersey trip now would look as if the President weren’t⁵ paying adequate attention to this real environmental crisis.
But the incident -- the actual story that didn’t happen -- is a great opportunity to speculate about it.
Like any of Obama's trips, even a cancelled one requires complex advance planning, for example that a factory tour route be scouted¹, usually with instructions to avoid places requiring that the president wear¹ a hardhat, which along with those goofy bike helmets, he does not like. But if everything goes well, no one will ever hear or see⁶ anything about the advance teams, which will be enroute to the president's next trip-stop before he's back in the White House.
If Obama were in New Jersey today, he would talk² with a few employees, who prior to the visit were cleared for immigration status and child support delinquencies. Were this trip taking place right now, top-notch sound equipment and lighting, risers for the TV cameras to see over any crowd and, most importantly, the proper backdrop for the president's remarks would ensure² its utter success. If the factory backdrop is ideal, immense (but silent) industrial equipment will impress but not distract⁶ viewers during the eight- or nine-second sound bite the prep teams hope to garner for their boss. Yet, even if everything is to their liking, the prep teams will still need⁶ to carry cans of women's hair spray, which dull the glaring sheen on those large banners often hanging over the stage.
It is crucial that the security team plan¹ only one travel route from the presidential aircraft to the plant. Safety requires that there be¹ at least two alternatives and that only those on a Secret Service radio frequency know which one will be taken. They then request that the local police department station¹ officers along the way.
Had the prep team known that this New Jersey trip wasn’t going to happen, lots of time and money would have been saved³. However, although going to Louisiana instead of New Jersey did absolutely nothing to stop the oil, advance the recovery or mitigate any damage beyond that potentially to the president's image if he hadn't gone ³, in the face of a natural disaster it was essential that he not make¹ Bush's mistakes, including his well-intentioned but strategically stupid flyover of New Orleans. (Adapted from the Los Angeles Times article “President Obama's non-visit to New Jersey”)


The subjunctive mood expresses what someone/something might be or do, should be or do, or must be or do, in other words what is contrary to fact. It is used to express a wish, a command, or a contingent or hypothetical event.

1. In clauses that express what one wants, hopes, or imagines happening/what needs to happen:
1.a. It is vital that the backdrop be ideal.
1.b. He demanded that his press secretary hold his temper.
1.c. It was essential that the trip be cancelled.
1.d. The set-up requires that the program be running smoothly.
1.e. The situation requires that BP not be let off the hook.
This structure using the infinitive of a verb (regardless whether the sentence is present or past tense) is used typically after verbs like ask, command, demand, insist, propose, recommend, request that and after expressions like it is desirable/essential/important/vital/necessary that

2. In if-clauses when they express that something is not possible/not true in the present:
2.a. If he were in New Jersey, he would talk about the economy.
2.b. If he had a double, he could be in both places at the same time.

3. In if-clauses when they express that something is not possible/not true in the past:
3.a. If I had known about the oil-spill, they would have planned things differently.

4. In sentences that express a wish:
4.a. I wish off shore drilling were less dangerous.

5. With as if/as though to express that something is not true/not possible:
5.a. They behave as if they were not responsible for the whole mess.
To express the hypothetical nature of the statements in 2-5, the verb forms are backshifted, i.e. a condition in the present is expressed through the verb in the past tense, a condition in the past through the verb in past perfect.

6. When an if-sentence, however, speculates about something that is possible or true in general, the normal tense is used.
6.a. If you don't use the subjunctive to speculate about a situation that is NOT possible, you will be completely misunderstood.

Strange causes of death

Even though Great Britain abolished capital punishment after in 1964 the last execution was performed by hanging, the country is seemingly thinking things over, and, as the NYT reports, "British Voters May Hang Parliament" (5/4/10).
On the other side of the Atlantic, some Caribbean countries, claiming that the Caribbean Court of Justice is "a hanging court," welcomed a statement by “Barbados Deputy Prime Minister, Freundel Stuart, who is also the country's Attorney General, [and] has announced that the mandatory death sentence will be abolished in Barbados” (Carribean Net News 5/29/09). This most certainly was a relief for every citizen of Barbados.
Several thousand miles north of Barbados, America's first shore wind farm will be built “in Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod. The bitterly contested project was held in check for years by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, whose family’s seaside compound faces the site; he died last August. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered the project reconfigured to minimize its visibility from land” (“Turnarounds” NYT 5/2/10). While the NYT here sounds as if the wind farm is not only a “costly eyesore” but also a lethal one, its own weekend editions can apparently be really fatal: “A note with the ‘On Language’ column on Page 14 this weekend refers to the absence of the regular columnist, William Safire. Mr. Safire died last Sunday, after some copies had gone to press (NYTmagazine 10/3/09).
Back in Great Britain, academics have something else to worry about. Dr. Sam George from the University of Hertfordshire and author of Botany, Sexuality, and Women’s Writing 1760-1820: From Modest Shoot to Forward Plant laments that the undead have been “losing their British passports,” presumably after “in 1974, a man who thought he was being tormented by vampires choked to death on garlic” ("Have the Undead Become Americanized?" WSJ 5/6/10).