by Bruce Popp
As professional French-into-English translators, we commonly encounter the French historical present tense in meeting minutes and reports of clinical cases written by doctors. In these documents, the writers use the present tense (and thereby avoid repeated use of the passé composé and imparfait) to describe events that occurred sometime earlier. To my mind this can seem like some kind of historical reenactment. “We are standing next to the village green in Lexington. On one side Capt. Parker is steadying his company of colonial militia and on the other the vanguard of the King’s Own 10th Regiment of Foot is marching into sight.”