Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

PRESENT TIME REFERENCES WITH THE PRESENT SIMPLE

339

General truths and facts

339a

The present simple can be used to refer to a general or permanent state of affairs,

or facts which are considered true at the present time:

My daughter 

lives in Berlin.

(compare: ‘My daughter is living in Berlin’, which would suggest a less

permanent situation)

She’s Swedish. She 

comes from Stockholm.

(a permanent fact about her nationality)

(She’s coming from Stockholm.)

My brother

’s coming from Wales.

(this cannot be a statement of my brother’s origin/nationality, and can only

mean that he is in the process of travelling or has arranged to travel from Wales

to where the speaker is)

---

I 

want a change. I’ve been in this job for almost twenty years.

I just 

love Thai curries.

[from a recruitment leaflet for the Friends of the Earth environmental

campaign]

By joining us, you 

make your voice heard and help us to continue working. 

The Earth 

needs all the friends it can get.

The present simple is also used to convey general truths and permanent facts

about the world:

2 plus 2 

makes 4.

A boundless warm river, some 80 kilometres wide and 500 metres deep, the

Gulf Stream 

passes into the colder waters of the western Atlantic. There it

spreads into four main currents and gradually loses momentum.

(the Gulf Stream is passing … there it is spreading …)

A work of art or the activities of an artist from the past may be referred to in the

present simple, to emphasise their continued existence, relevance and availability

at the present time:

Jane Austen 

allows us to see within the minds not only of her heroines but of

many other characters as well.

It is, however, perhaps in the 55th Sonnet that Shakespeare 

gives to this idea

its fullest expression.

Plot summaries, book blurbs and reviews of novels, plays, etc. also use the present

simple:

[plot summary on the back cover of a novel]

One morning, Rebecca 

wakes up and realises she has turned into the wrong

person.