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

Speech-reporting verbs 

360e

Reports with extended relevance 

When a speech report refers to something said in the past that is always true or

always relevant, the present simple is often used for the reporting verb:

[speaker reports verbal instructions she received from the owner of a 

portable baby’s bed as to how to assemble it]

She 

says you’ve got to twist these round and it makes them solid or 

something.

Her earliest memory, she 

tells me, is of her father returning from the 

First World War.

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492b The present simple in Speech representation

Hear

, tell and understand as reporting verbs are also often used in the present

simple tense, to report or to query newsworthy past events:

What’s all this I 

hear about you attacking Barbara?

Jane 

tells me you’ve not been too well since you got back from holiday.

[customer (A) and check-out assistant in a store; Switch is a kind of 

charge-card]

A: I understand you’re taking Switch soon.

B: We’re taking Switch now.

A: Oh.

(somebody told me, or I read it somewhere)

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339e Mental process verbs

626 | Past time

Cambridge Grammar of English

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