Some thoughts on the significance of tense.

The following is letter to the editor from a philosopher who has greatly influenced my thinking.



Americans are not a people to whom things happen. We are a people who make things happen. We have a language, English, that is admirably suited to expressing and carrying out this attitude. English does not treat the future as events that are certain to happen. The future is dealt with as expectation of future events. Usually there is an indication of the reason for the expectation from which the reader or hearer can judge the likelihood of the event actually happening.

Some examples of how English deals with the future are, "I think it is going to rain," "I will marry you," "The contractor shall provide all labor and material," "The work must be completed by Friday," and "I hope you will go." These express present expectation, condition, or choice that may decide future events: not future events.

Language is the most useful tool mankind has. Mankind's understanding and control over his surroundings is almost entirely through language. It is the tool we use to think. A language can have a profound effect on attitudes. If a language deals with the future as fact the culture is likely to tend toward fatalism. Properly used, English encourages the notion of free will and the importance of the choices we make. Fatalists have no use for democracy.

Like any powerful tool the most effective use of a language must be learned by careful study or taught by competent teachers. The way English deals with the future is not taught and, in fact, seems to have been forgotten by most educational institutions. It seems that they endorse the idea that sticking the word "will" in a phrase creates a future tense without realizing that the word "will" has for hundreds of years been, and still is, extensively used to mean choice or decision. Apparently educators are content to have one word mean two very different things as in "He will go but not willingly."




Godfrey R. Gauld