This meme was recently shared in a language and beginning writers group I participate in. It started a nice chat about the various forms of the word “tense” and how they're supposed to be used.
How do you know which form to use? Well, just like a knife can be a tool or a weapon, it's all in how you plan on using it.
So let's look into the uses of this word, and we'll finish up with a special use - the one that this meme’s pun hinges on.
Tension in many forms
To understand how these forms are used, we're going to watch a wrestling match.
Tense is an adjective. It can also be a verb.
The air in the arena is tense with anticipation. (Adjective, describing how the crowd in the arena felt)
Janice tries massaging her guy's back and sighs. “Your back feels really tense. You need to relax.” (Adjective, describing the subject’s back muscles)
Mike grunts. “What's the big deal?”
“You could get hurt if you tense your back when you fall.” (Verb, explaining what the subject might do with his back)
Tenses is a verb.
The bell rings, and Jim charges out of his corner.
Mike tenses his back to help him withstand Jim slamming into him. (Verb, explaining what the subject is currently doing with his back)
Tensed is an adjective. It can also be a verb.
Later that night, Mike watched the PPV replay. Janice was in complete Angry Mom mode.
“See? See how your back was tensed before he hit you and you fell backwards out of the ring?” (Adjective, describing the state of Mike's back when Jim came barreling in)
“I didn't think I tensed it that much.” (Verb, explaining what Mike didn't want to admit what he did with his back)
Tensing is a verb.
“Why were you still tensing your back when I told you what would happen?” (Verb, explaining what Mike was doing with his back despite warnings)
Tension is a noun.
Mike winced. “Well, I promise my back lost every bit of tension when I blacked out.” (Noun, because it's a thing his back had)
“Yeah, well the arena didn't. The tension was palpable.” (Noun, this time something the arena’s atmosphere had)
Janice rubbed the back of her neck. “My tension headache was pretty palpable too.” (This could be tricky, but it's used here as a Noun. Although some might consider “tension” to be an adjective, a modifier of the noun “headache,” this is a case where “tension headache” is considered a complete thing of its own)
Tensely is an adverb.
She rose tensely and left. (Adverb, describing how she rose)
Finally, we come to the special use where the words “tense” and “tenses” refer to the time modifier of all verbs.
The meme
We modify verbs in a lot of ways. One of those ways is modifying them for time. The time of the vowel’s happening is called its “tense.”
Past tense means the verb has already happened.
Present tense means the verb is happening right now.
Future tense means the verb hasn't happened yet.
There are even modifiers for the modifiers (perfect, imperfect, etc.). But that's a little deeper into the pool than I want to go today.
So this pun relies on a word which has different meanings in different contexts.
In this example, we’re inclined to read the sentence “It was tense” as if the word “tense” was an adjective describing the environment of the bar as a result of the three things entering, as in the environment inside the bar became “tense” or “uncomfortable.”
The pun comes into play because of the relationship the three subjects have in common: they are all “tenses” that verbs can have.
The past-tense verb “walked” might throw off readers who see a need to change the sentence “It was tense” to “It was tensed” in an effort to have verb-tense agreement, but since this context isn't using “tense” as a verb but instead uses it as an adjective, there is no need to end “tense” with a -d. The verb in the sentence is “was,” so the verb-tenses already agree.
So the word “tense” and its various derivatives can have many different uses based on the context. This pun just makes clear how English relies on more than just word definitions to determine proper understanding.
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