In the letter, “Save English language, proper tense, please,” (Feb. 13), Kathleen Jacques gives a slap on the wrist to reporters who use the present tense to narrate actions that occurred in the past, a phenomenon she believes to be “a new way of speaking” and ungrammatical to boot. In fact, this usage, known as the historical present, has existed in English since the 13th century. Novelists use it all the time (Wikipedia gives examples from Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, and Margaret Atwood), and it’s indispensable for writers of headlines. Nor is the employment of the historical present a matter of grammar; it’s a stylistic choice.

Kenneth Bleeth

New London