{"id":772,"date":"2004-04-28T06:45:35","date_gmt":"2004-04-28T06:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/?p=772"},"modified":"2004-04-28T06:45:35","modified_gmt":"2004-04-28T06:45:35","slug":"mixing-tenses-makes-me-tense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/2004\/04\/mixing-tenses-makes-me-tense\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixing tenses makes me tense"},"content":{"rendered":"

I stopped by Side Salad<\/a>‘s employer’s Web site<\/a> to see if his co-workers provided any blogworthy offenses. Found something on the first try, just like the last time I tried this. Maybe I’m just too picky, but this annoys me:<\/p>\n

TAMPA – A 59-year-old man threatens his mother and a health-care worker with kitchen knives, throwing one at a Pinellas County deputy’s head while being pelted with capsules of powdered pepper spray.<\/p>\n

\nA day before, a 27-year-old man driving a stolen utility truck drags a Pinellas deputy’s patrol car beneath a boat trailer, ignoring commands to pull over.
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\nSunday, a 41-year-old man tries to burn down his home, threatens suicide and points a plastic-and-metal tool that resembles a gun at a Hillsborough County deputy at an RV park.
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\nMonday, a 20-year-old man suspected of delivering rock cocaine tries to run over a Tampa police officer with a pickup truck, and then leads police on a 20-minute chase after being shot in the chest. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The lede was an acceptable (if a tad overused) example of present-tense storytelling; the ensuing graphs set me off: “a day before…” puts the sentence in past tense. Same thing for the next two sentences. Mixing present and past in the same sentence is not a crime against humanity or anything; it’s just ungainly, and unnecessary.
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A bulleted list, with the past-tense stuff as bold-faced lead-ins, would’ve been a handy quick fix. It’d need a quicky intro preparing the reader for the list, then something like this:<\/p>\n