Learning English

A horse walks into a bar ...

There is a genre of short jokes in English that involve people or animals walking into bars. The barman then makes some comment about the customer.

The joke is often language based. To understand these jokes you usually need to understand the different meanings that words and expressions have. There is often a play between literal and idiomatic meanings. Take this joke for example:

A horse walks into a bar. The barman says: "Why the long face?"

Hilarious, isn't it!

To understand this you need to know that if someone has a long face it means they look sad. This is the idiomatic meaning. A horse, of course, has a long face, not idiomatically but really.

OK, this might not be the funniest joke ever, but it does demonstrate an interesting grammar point. 

Look at the verb forms in the joke:

A horse walks into a bar. The barman says: "Why the long face?"

They are present.

In informal spoken English it's very common to use present verbs forms when we are telling jokes. This is also true for stories and anecdotes and also when talking about the plots of films and books.

ነቲ ጽሑፍ ብምንባብ ነቲ ስራሕ ዕመምዎ

Present for the past

Read this description of an unusual event. What do you notice about the verb forms?

"So last Sunday I'm on my way to the shops when I see the strangest thing. There's a giraffe. And it's just walking down the street as if it's on the way to the shops too. I take a picture of it and before you know it my photo goes viral. It's on social media, it's on the news. It's in the papers on Monday and on Tuesday I'm on televsion talking about it. What a week!"

Everything that's described here happened in the past however there are no past verb forms. Present verb forms are used throughout.

Using the present for past events makes the story more engaging and more personal. It's typical in informal spoken English.

To do

Do you remember the story of the man and his grandad going fishing in the last activity? In this quiz you're going to tell the story again only this time using present verb forms where appropriate.

Next

Now it's time to sit back, relax and listen to Catherine and Finn talking about the topic of narrative verb forms in 6 Minute Grammar. Enjoy!