History Main / TimeTravelTenseTrouble

* Referenced in a Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse novel about the [[Literature/StarTrekDepartmentOfTemporalInvestigations Department of Temporal Investigations]], which deals heavily with the logic and philosophy behind this trope. It concludes that the simplest solution is to look at things from the perspective of someone outside time and pretend everything is happening at once, and as such simply use present tense for everything.

* Chris Sims of Comics Alliance describes one {{Plot Thread|s}} in the ''Westernanimation/XMen'': "Beyond Good and Evil" storyline thusly:

* ''Literature/TheDoorIntoSummer'':
-->Then I caught hold of myself and realized that, out of all the persons living in 1970, [Dr. Twitchell] was the one I had least need to worry about. Nothing could go wrong because nothing had ... I meant "nothing would." No--- Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive situations-- conjugations that would make the French literary tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.

* The opening cutscene to ''VideoGame/SpiderManEdgeOfTime''. "Earlier... in the future." This is also lampshaded in a [[Funny/SpiderManEdgeOfTime funny moment]]:

-->'''Clockwork:''' I sent him back to his own time... or should I say, ''forward'' to his own time? You see, for me, [[TimeDissonance time moves backwards, and forwards]], and... oh, why am I bothering? You're fourteen.

* ''Film/DejaVu'':

* ''Series/Supernatural'': In the GroundhogDayLoop episode "Mystery Spot", Sam, the only one who has experienced the loop, asks Dean, in what would become a MemeticMutation:

* A frequent out-of-universe problem when trying to describe events crossing ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', due to the major differences in how the retcon affected different characters and different past events. A few characters were rebooted as completely new characters (Franchise/WonderWoman), some were made so that they had been around before the Crisis, but their personalities and histories suddenly had always been very different from what all previous comics portrayed (Franchise/{{Superman}}), some were erased from history (''Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}''), and some had basically the same history and memory that they had had before the Crisis (Franchise/TheFlash, Franchise/GreenLantern). Therefore, there's both the reader's perception of what "Pre-Crisis" and "ComicBook/PostCrisis" means (Pre-Crisis: [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden]], [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver]] and UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}}, ComicBook/PostCrisis: [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark]] and Modern Age), and there's the characters' perception of what "Pre Crisis" and "Post Crisis" means (basically: Pre Crisis: Before [[Franchise/TheFlash Barry]] and ''[[Comicbook/{{Supergirl}} Kara]]'' died, Post Crisis: after Barry and Kara died). This leads to descriptions like "After the Crisis, Batman changed so that he had been dark and brooding both before and after Barry died."\\\

* In ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', a duplicate of [[MadScientist Kevyn Andreyasn]] created by time travel meeting his past self results in [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20050415.html the pronoun trouble]] version as well as [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20050417.html the verb tense issue]].

* ''Film/BackToTheFuturePart'':

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* In ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', Dr. Manhattan, who is able to perceive the past, present and future, says "Yes, yes, he [[spoiler:killed Blake and half of New York]]. Excuse me, Rorschach, I'm informing Laurie 90 seconds ago," to Laurie "Silk Spectre" Juspeczyk, being confused by tachyon interference, before saying the same thing to Rorschach 90 seconds later. He's even in the exact same pose and position (relative to the walls of the panel) both times he says it. Also, the whole flashback (flashnow?) scene on Mars.

* A frequent out-of-universe problem when trying to describe events crossing ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', due to the major differences in how the retcon affected different characters and different past events. A few characters were rebooted as completely new characters (Franchise/WonderWoman), some were made so that they had been around before the Crisis, but their personalities and histories suddenly had always been very different from what all previous comics portrayed (Franchise/{{Superman}}), some were erased from history (''Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}''), and some had basically the same history and memory that they had had before the Crisis (Franchise/TheFlash, Franchise/GreenLantern). Therefore, there's both the reader's perception of what "Pre-Crisis" and "ComicBook/PostCrisis" means (Pre-Crisis: [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden]], [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver]] and UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}}, ComicBook/PostCrisis: [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark]] and Modern Age), and there's the characters' perception of what "Pre Crisis" and "Post Crisis" means (basically: Pre Crisis: Before [[Franchise/TheFlash Barry]] and ''[[Comicbook/{{Supergirl}} Kara]]'' died, Post Crisis: after Barry and Kara died). This leads to descriptions like "After the Crisis, Batman changed so that he had been dark and brooding both before and after Barry died."\\
\\
Also, Barry's life, career and friendship with other characters, as well as the vague event [[note]]from the characters' point of view: that Really Big Deal that no one really remembers but no one ever wonders about[[/note]] that caused his death, are all perfectly compatible (as far as their memories are concerned) with their personal histories and timelines that had been established ''after'' the Crisis was written. So basically, the characters can all recall and talk about events that as far as they are concerned, occurred when Barry Allen was still alive, but most of those events are significantly different from how they were reported by comic books written before the Crisis was published.

* ''ComicBook/{{Cable}}'': There's often no telling from which point in his life the Cable you're dealing with is actually from. It would be ''completely possible'' for him to be KilledOffForReal, and ''still'' continue to appear in comics simply because he hasn't died ''yet''. The best you have is a few markers, like whether or not he's currently infected with the T-O virus, or if he has Belle.[[note]]A sentient A.I. who helps manage his time travel abilities.[[/note]] However even ''that'' isn't a given.
* ''Justice League Odyssey'' reintroduces the time traveler Epoch who uses entirely new tenses of words to communicate niche timeframes relative to his current one. Everyone else is confused when he uses them, to which he just responds they aren't familiar with "fourth dimensional grammar".

* In [[http://archiveofourown.org/works/129054 Here Be Dragons]]:
--> '''[[Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle Syaoran]]:''' Please don't get too upset at [[MyOwnGrampa my]] [[TimeTravel past]] [[CloningBlues self]] for the things [[EvilTwin he]] [[WhamEpisode is going to do,]] he's going to be going through a very hard time just then.

* In ''Fanfic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed'', the narrator's confusing take on time travel and method for dealing with the Starswirl inconsistency tends to invoke this trope more than a few times.
* ''Fanfic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality'' has this gem, which is more to do with Time Travel PronounTrouble: '"If I and my future self interact, we'll still see the same thing as both of me, even though, on my first run through, my future self is already acting in full knowledge of things that, from my own perspective, haven't happened yet..." Harry's voice trailed off into the inadequacy of English.'

* ''Fanfic/StrangeTimesAreUponUs'':
-->'''Brokosh:''' Wait, back up. Are you saying we went back in time and [[StableTimeLoop caused a historical event that was going to happen anyway]]? Had already happened?\\
''[later]''\\
'''Brokosh:''' But what I know is, you just caused me one hell of a headache when we get back to the future. The present. Whatever the fuck noun I'm supposed to use.
* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' PeggySue fanfic "[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/hey-missy-worm-peggy-sue.318440/#post-15732961 Hey Missy]]", Vista becomes frustrated when she tries to decide on a time tense:
-->Ever gallant, wasn't he? No wonder I'd crushed at him. Was crushing? Had been currently crushing? I hated time travel tenses.
* A minor gag in ''Fanfic/TheInfiniteLoops'' is Twilight Sparkle inventing a whole set of new tenses specifically to counter this problem... and nobody else ever memorizing them.
* In ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'', any attempt to discuss the StableTimeLoop surrounding [[spoiler: Harry's]] future self leaving a letter with Xavier fifty years in the past to give to him in the present tends to result in confusion and headaches.
* During ''Fanfic/{{Facing the Future|Series}}'', Danny runs into this when describing [[spoiler: his bad future self fighting his good future self]].
-->'''Valerie:''' ''[confused]'' Uh, Danny? What are you talking about?\\
''[Danny sighs]''\\
'''Danny:''' You know what? I really don't know anymore.
* ''Fanfic/BrotherOnBrotherDaughterOnMother'' has this line from [[spoiler:Eleya's time-traveling future daughter]]:
-->"I was -- ''will be'' born in 2421."
* The Thirteen Generals of Dawn's Gate figure out quickly what Barid Bel Medar is proposing when he suggests using balefire on Paaren Disen, but he still has to say he has a plan "to have won" the War of Power in "Lost Violent Souls", a ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' prequel.

* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12612005/9/A-Trio-of-Tricksters-Eclipse-the-Past-Usurp-the-Future A Trio of Tricksters: Eclipse the Past, Usurp the Present]]'':
-->'''Hermione:''' That's why we did it. Will do it. Have done it. Whatever. If the ministry doesn't have dementors, the dementors can't kiss Sirius ''or'' Peter. We know we did it safely with no serious harm. So we'll do it. Did it. Have done it. ''Gods'' time travel is hard.

* ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'' has this exchange:
-->'''Marty:''' It's my fault -- the whole thing is my fault. If I hadn't bought [[TimelineAlteringMacGuffin that damn book]], then none of this would've happened.\\

-->'''1955!Doc:''' Well, good luck for both our sakes. See you in the future.
-->'''Marty:''' You mean the past?
-->'''1955!Doc:''' Exactly!

* In ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'', Gillian catches Spock referring to the extinction of whales in the past tense.
* From ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', when our heroes go back in time and meet the inventor of warp drive:
-->'''Will Riker:''' Someone once said, "Don't try to be a great man; just be a man, and let history make its own judgement."\\
'''Zephram Cochrane:''' Rhetorical nonsense. Who said that?\\
'''Riker:''' You did, ten years from now.

* Played with in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' Podcast/RiffTrax:
-->'''Gordon:''' We've found his next target. He's put it in tomorrow's newspaper.\\
'''Kevin:''' Then we'd have been too late. If only there will be something we could do.
* In ''Film/GroundhogDay'', Phil never really has to worry about his tenses because he's the only one who realizes he's in a GroundhogDayLoop, but that just makes some of what he says funnier for the audience.
-->'''Phil:''' ''[after being told something will be handled tomorrow]'' Well what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today!
* Mostly avoided in ''Film/{{Looper}}'', but there are a few phrases here and there that cause tense trouble.
-->'''Joe:''' In seventy years, time travel will have been invented.
* Inverted in ''Film/FlightOfTheNavigator'', when David gets asked by the police what year he thinks it is, unaware he's gone 8 years into the future.
* The first thing Agatha says after being pulled from the [[PoweredByAForsakenChild pre-crime unit]] in ''Film/MinorityReport'' is "Is it now?"

* This forms the basis of an entire conversation in ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'', when the villains watch ''Spaceballs'' on VHS (which has been released before they finished filming the movie) and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNIwlRClHsQ reach the part of the movie that's happening right now.]]
-->'''Dark Helmet''': What happened to Then?\\
'''[[PunnyName Colonel Sandurz]]''': We passed Then.\\
'''Dark Helmet''': When?\\
'''Colonel Sandurz''': Just now. We're at Now, now.
* ''Film/DejaVu'':
-->'''Denny''': "See you yesterday."

* In ''Literature/HarryPotter,'' Hermione insists on the correct tense when she travels back in time. Hermione likes things just right!
* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' has this to say on how time travel changes how one refers to things:
** In ''Literature/TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse'', the Guide discusses this problem at some length. It states that the best resource on how to get your tenses right is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's ''Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations'', which teaches you how to change "is" to such bizarre constructions as "wioll haven be" and has tenses for even very specific situations (like how to describe something you [[TrickedOutTime would have experienced in the future, but which you avoided by traveling through time]]). The problem is that the book is described as "an exceptionally dull read," and so many readers give up at the same spot[[note]]the section on Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional tense, to be specific[[/note]] that later copies of the book have blank pages after that point to save on printing costs. The only useful thing to come out of the book is the discovery that the future perfect tense is actually invalid, because it was "discovered not to be."
** An excerpt from ''Literature/MostlyHarmless'' describes causality thus:
--->''Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. [[MindScrew It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though]].''

* Averted in Creator/PoulAnderson's ''Literature/TimePatrol'' stories. In those stories, the Patrol developed an artificial language, called Temporal, which allowed Patrolmen to discuss such matters without any of the tense problems raised in this trope. Since only Time Patrolmen learned and used Temporal, it also served as a way that Patrolmen could speak between themselves without risk of being overheard (or more accurately, understood) by others.
* Shows up a few times in Harry Harrison's ''Literature/TheTechnicolorTimeMachine''.
* Creator/LarryNiven's stories involving Svetz love to play with this trope. Svetz's solution to a time paradox involving the destruction of Ford's Model-T demonstrates very well how bad English is with time travel:

* In ''[[Literature/LandOfOz Paradox in Oz]]'' by Edward Einhorn (1999), Ozma travels in time with the assistance of a Parrot-Ox, and finds out that there are two kinds of time she can travel in: "Oz time" and "Ozma time", the former being travel through the timeline of the entire land of Oz, while the latter is travel within her own personal timeline (letting her undo things she did, including other time-traveling).
* The NarniaTime in effect between the territories in ''Literature/ThePendragonAdventure'' occasionally causes this sort of trouble. Usually involving rookie Travelers (We're looking at you, Spader and Siry).

* In the Gospel of John in ''Literature/TheBible'', Jesus says, "Before Abraham was born, I am!" This is a statement of divinity -- "I am" is connected to the "name" Yahweh or Jehovah, as God told Moses ("I am that I am") -- instead of evidence for a time-travelling Jesusmobile, but tenses for the omnipresent seem to run into the same problems with language.
** ''The Bible'' also tends to record prophecies as though the future events they describe have already happened. There's actually a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophetic_perfect_tense special word tense]] for this.
* ''Literature/OracleOfTao'' there are at least two examples:

--> ''I don't remember making it for her, but obviously some point in the near future this will happen in her past.''
* ''Literature/YoungWizards'' universe:
** In the ''Young Wizards'' series itself, it's mentioned in passing that the Speech, the LanguageOfMagic with which reality was written, ''does'' have the words to deal with thing like this, including talking about something in the past which used to be but no longer is due to the past having been changed.
** In the ''Book of Night with Moon'' Arhu, a visionary, says, " ''Au,'' Rhiow, the way we talk about time doesn't work for talking about vision. I need new words or something!" Presumably he has not learned enough of the Speech yet.

* Due to the [[AnachronicOrder non-linear narrative structure]] of ''Literature/TheIlluminatusTrilogy'', this happens with the narrator, who is aware of the non-linearity. As the book goes on, several of the characters fall victim to this trope after becoming effectively UnstuckInTime.
* ''Literature/TimeScout'' makes this easy. It's running on a lot of different SanDimasTime [[PortalToThePast portals to the past]]. If a portal leads to 1888 and the time travellers are talking about an event in 1889, they use the future tense. When they're talking about the future/present, they just use the present tense.
* Dracula and Bathory suffer from this as children in ''Literature/CountAndCountess''.
* Etsugoya and Tsubakihara in ''Literature/TheImpossibleStairwell'' both have some trouble with tenses before deciding to "just pick one tense and stick to it".
* The ''Literature/TimeWarpTrio'' book ''2095'' has the Trio return from the future and decide they need to leave a TimeCapsule for their grandkids to complete a StableTimeLoop "or else they won't be able to save us before now ... or is it after then?"
* In the ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series, about a 20th century West Virginia coal mining town sent back in time to the middle of the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar, both "uptimers" and locals of the 17th century are often found groping for a way to describe what for the West Virginians would be settled history but hasn't yet happened (or, more likely, will never happen thanks to the [[ButterflyOfDoom Butterfly Effect]]) for those living during the Thirty Years' War.

* The protagonist of "...And it Comes Out Here" by Creator/LesterDelRey has a bit of trouble talking to his younger self:
-->You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always have... or do... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
* The ''Literature/PastDoctorAdventures'' novel ''Imperial Moon'' explicitly features the Fifth Doctor regretting that the English language doesn't have the right tenses for time travel when he says "We will have been here before" after the TARDIS has just materialised on the Moon in the twenty-first century due to crossing their own temporal wake of a journey they will make to the Moon in 1878 in the TARDIS's own personal future.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov and Creator/JanetAsimov's ''Literature/NorbysOtherSecret'': Norby and Jeff get mixed up on "before" and "after" when it comes to personal history versus objective history, but both times it gets handwaved away with the other people in the conversation saying that they understood the intent and to get on with the explanation.

* ''Series/TwelveMonkeys'' is surprisingly light on these for a show with, on average, half a dozen instances of time travel per episode, but there are a few.
** In the GroundhogDayLoop episode (2x08):
-->'''Jennifer''': Hey! I didn't see either of you two yester-today.

-->[[spoiler:'''John Sheridan''']]: The question of who [[spoiler:stole Babylon 4]] is one of the greatest mysteries in Earth military history! And you're telling me it was... me!? Uh, is me? Is going to be me?

* In ''Series/DayBreak2006'', Brett often ran into this whenever he tried to explain the GroundhogDayLoop to another character.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E6Shada "Shada"]]:

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E4TheTwoDoctors "The Two Doctors"]]: The Sixth Doctor comments on the Second Doctor in this convoluted way.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E13ThePartingOfTheWays "The Parting of the Ways"]] has a non-comedic use: Rose is sent back home to avoid a bloodbath taking place in the future. Jackie brushes it off, but it tears Rose up enough that she tears up other things...
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary "Silence in the Library"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead "Forest of the Dead"]] is the Doctor's first encounter with River Song, but far from her first encounter with him. As a result, she experiences this trope when she talks about her relationship with him since that's all in his future.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E2TheBeastBelow "The Beast Below"]]: Amy ends up encountering this, telling a little girl she's getting married "a long time ago tomorrow morning." Which does ''technically'' make sense in the same way as "a week tomorrow" (specifically, she'd gone forwards in time from the night before her wedding).

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens "The Pandorica Opens"]]:

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E4TheDoctorsWife "The Doctor's Wife"]]: Idris, in addition to liking biting ("It's like kissing, only there's a winner!") has some initial trouble clarifying her tenses. [[spoiler:It makes sense, since she's the spirit of the Doctor's vehicle trapped within a flesh body. She jumps across space and time without regard to those silly simian concepts of past, present, and future.]]

-->'''Hurley:''' Aha! I can't shoot you, because if you die in 1977 then you'll never come back to the Island on the freighter thirty years from now!
-->'''Miles:''' I ''can'' die, because I've already come to the Island on the freighter!

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', in the episode "Relativity":
--->'''Braxton:''' Thanks to you, we've learned that the temporal disruptor was and will be concealed here. [[LampshadeHanging I gave up trying to keep my tenses straight years ago.]]
** And at the end of the episode:
--->'''Janeway:''' ''[returning to Voyager from the 29th Century]'' See you in the 24th Century.\\

** Captain Janeway will happily deal with [[NegativeSpaceWedgie negative space wedgies]] all day long, but she hates dealing with time travel for precisely this reason.

** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode ''Time Squared'' Picard must try to find a way to prevent the destruction of the ''Enterprise'' that he knows is coming.
--->'''Picard:''' We must anticipate, and try not to make the same mistake... once."

* ''TabletopGame/{{Continuum}}'' invents a time-travellers' jargon with terms regarding your personal 'spanner' timeline being separate from terms used in the general 'leveller' timeline. Things in your subjective past are in your "age", while things in your subjective future are in your "yet". When talking about objective time, things are either "Up" or "Down"; the year 2000, for example, is Up from the year 1990. All events except those in your personal past require the present tense, since in a second, they may be your "now" too.

* ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'' runs into this once it starts talking about time travel; when discussing the consequences of changing the past it says that "what used to happen (and here the past tense gets into a bit of trouble), is that [[TimePolice you got your ass kicked]] by the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien transsapient gods]] who live at the end of time."

'''Robert:''' "Had to have...had...been?" That can't be right.
** Also, in the game's intro, Robert notes that Booker "doesn't row". [[spoiler: He means that (looking from a future perspective) Booker ''never'' rows, in any of the timelines. Rosalind misinterprets this as "Booker doesn't know how to row, isn't a rower".]]

--> This doesn't make any sense to me. My readings tell me that your Temporal Scaling isn't strong enough yet to support the mission I had planned for you. But you've already done the mission. I know. I was there.

-->'''[[spoiler:Garland/Chaos:]]''' "Two thousand years from now, you killed me."

* The ''VideoGame/{{Achron}}'' fandom made a little of their own grammar to explain stuff in the game. They talk about game-time and real-time (also referred to as "time" and "metatime"), and refer to units and events as early or late. When they specify when something happened, they use an ordered pair for the time.
* A boss in ''VideoGame/{{Avernum}} 5'' summons two future versions of himself to assist him, and he does his best to keep his grammar consistent when shouting orders to them. He loses track and starts rambling when you kill both future selves and screw up the timeline.
* ''VideoGame/{{Discworld}}'' lets players go back and forth between the past and the present. If you try to use an item that needs to be used at that place but in a different time, Rincewind will say "Try again later. Or earlier."
* In ''VideoGame/TheLongestJourney'', one of the species April encounters in Arcadia perceives the timeline all at once, and so has a horrible time keeping tenses straight when speaking to more temporally limited creatures.

* In ''VideoGame/LegacyOfHeroes'', Shimmerstorm speaks exclusively in this.
-->'''Shimmerstorm:''' Like I'll tell you yesterday, I was ready.
* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' expansion ''Burning Crusade'', a quest mob you can fight is a large creature called [[Franchise/StarWars Banthar]]. In ''Warlords of Draenor'', which takes place in the past of this same area, a person who sends you after Banthar on a quest has this to say:
-->They have Banthar here! Or rather, she's still alive back now. Did what I just said make any sense?

* ''Anachronist'' implies that every mage who tries to investigate the mysteries of time is inevitably driven mad by the mixing of verb tenses.
-->The ranger teams have done the hard work and the rogue chronomage is now in custody. Hurray! the world is saved and all that. Except taking down the wizard just means he isn't going to destroy the universe in a giant temporal paradox, there's no guarantee he hasn't ''already'' destroyed the universe. That's the problem with time travel, you never know if the past has already happened. At least you can always count on the future having not happened since otherwise you'd remember it happening (unless of course it happened in a past that hasn't happened yet, but that hardly ever happens).

* ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'' has one [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2130.html here]]. Of course, Nazi scienc-- wait, ''grammar'' sneers at it.
--> When we will have done what we soon will did do in die past, you will see die results of what we have now already will have done!

* In ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', a duplicate of [[MadScientist Kevyn Andreyasn]] created by time travel meeting his past self results in [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20050415.html the pronoun trouble]] version as well as [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20050417.html the verb tense issue]].
* In Simulated Comic Product: Behold! [[http://robotandghost.com/wp-content/gallery/2008/2008-01-15-ERROR.jpg the museum of the future!]]
* Described in TheRant for [[http://dizzy.pestermom.com/?p=thcomic101 this]] ''Webcomic/TouhouNekokayou'', where it divides temporal conversation between "subjective" (what the time traveller personally experience), "objective" (chronological order), and "metatemporal" (the perspective of changes made to the timeline).
* In one ''[[Webcomic/DinosaurComics Dinosaur Comic]]'', T-Rex likes to assume every unknown historical figure is, in fact, himself on a time travel ("It sounds rad to me!")

* ''{{Webcomic/Narbonic}}'': Dave, a long-time chain-smoker, travels back in time and alters the past so that he never started smoking. Later, when he mentions this, his co-workers give him odd looks and comment, "Dave, you never smoked."\\
\\
In the [[TheAnnotatedEdition Director's Cut]] commentary. Loyal readers from the comic's first run, when they saw Dave smoking in the early strips, inevitably commented, "Say ... Dave never smoked!" "Yes, but he hasn't never smoked ''yet!''"

* [[http://amultiverse.com/2011/02/09/doctor-whoa/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ScenesFromAMultiverse+%28Scenes+From+A+Multiverse%29 This]] ''Series/DoctorWho'' parody from ''WebComic/ScenesFromAMultiverse'' features "That's OK, I'll try you again yesterday!"

* ''{{Webcomic/Comc}}'':
** Not in-universe, but TheRant is occasionally written the day before the strips are posted. Usually when this happens, Krixwell (the author) starts off with a comment where "yesterday", "today" and "tomorrow" are essentially equivalent. From the commentary for [[https://sites.google.com/site/comccomic/archive/comc41 str'p #41]]:
--->Tomorrow, I'll be continuing what I started two days ago by writing this yesterday, i.e. today. For the record, tomorrow is today, because today is yesterday. Did you see this[[note]]a link to a different post[[/note]], which was written after this but posted yesterday?\\
[...]\\
Meanwhile, I'm off to do whatever I'll be doing yesterday.\\
P.S. yesterday: [...]
** In-universe example (that might count as an aversion or downplayed?): [[http://comc-comic.co.nr/archive/comcnewyearsspecial2014 John's New Year's resolution is "to make a time machine]] and go see the dinosaurs before/after [[http://comc-comic.co.nr/archive/comc5 their butterfly accident.]]
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', this is [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/?date=2006-08-24 encountered]] [[ConversedTrope during a discussion]] about ''Franchise/StarTrek''.
* Luigi has to deal with a combination of this and a bratty teenager when talking to [[spoiler: [[KidFromTheFuture his daughter]]]] in ''Webcomic/LsEmpire''.
-->'''Luigi:''' [[spoiler:Now you listen here young lady, I'm going to teach you better manners than that.]]\\
'''[[spoiler:Rosa]]:''' [[spoiler:Shut up, you're not my dad...]]\\
'''Luigi:''' [[spoiler:What?]]\\
'''[[spoiler:Rosa]]:''' [[spoiler:Yet.]]
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'': An [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20190304 extradimensional being]] that the English conspirators summon has a very difficult time working out what verbs to use in its sentences. The fact that the summoning and the being's own nature are altering the local flow of time doesn't help either.
* ''Webcomic/GrrlPower'': [[https://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-502-checkpoint-checkup/ Sydney and Krona have a bit of trouble]] after the latter's "[[SaveScumming checkpoint]]" has activated.
-->'''Krona:''' But first you need to tell us what you experienced. As the person who triggered the checkpoint, you're the only one who remembers what happened.\\
Or... will have happened?\\
'''Sydney:''' Would have happened.\\
'''Krona:''' Will would happen.\\
'''Sydney:''' Might happen?

* Examined and refuted by Website/ThingsOfInterest in detail [[http://qntm.org/streetmentioner here]].

* From [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki's]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Traveler_Convention#Time_Traveler_Convention article]] on the MIT Time Traveler Convention: "The spacetime coordinates continue to be publicized prominently and indefinitely, so that future time travelers will be aware and have the opportunity to have attended."

* In ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible:'' ''[[TheMovie A Sitch in Time]]'' Shego's future self tries to explain her scheme to take over the world in the future to her present self.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
** In "The Farnsworth Parabox," [[Administrivia/TropesAreFlexible an analogous situation]] arises while discussing parallel worlds. As Professor Farnsworth-A is arguing with [[AlternateSelf Professor Farnsworth-1]] about the accusation that [[MirrorUniverse one of them is evil]] and wants to destroy the opposing universe:
--->'''Farnsworth-A:''' Nonsense! I would never do such a thing, unless ''you'' were already having been going to do that!\\
'''Farnsworth-1:''' ...wha?\\
'''Farnsworth-A:''' ''You heard me!''
** In a scene parodying ''Film/MinorityReport'', Fry's reaction when discovering he will commit a crime:
--->'''Fry:''' No, no! What have I will have done?
* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nPjFRsJGqA this scene]] from the ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'' episode "Timing Is Everything," the Turtles receive a message from their future selves, as well as a reminder to [[StableTimeLoop send the message to their past selves when they will have reached that point in the future]].
* Paradox from ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'' has this problem; more specifically, it's the fact he seems to mix up events that haven't happened yet with events that have.
--> '''Paradox:''' ''(to Ben)'' You're much smarter now than when I first met you later.
* Ditto for Clockwork on ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'':
-->'''Clockwork:''' I sent him back to his own time... or should I say, ''forward'' to his own time? You see, for me, [[TimeDissonance time moves backwards, and forwards]], and... oh, why am I bothering? You're fourteen.

* Parodied on ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' when Stewie and Brian travel through time.
-->'''Stewie:''' Now we just got to figure out where we are.\\
'''Brian:''' Or WHEN we are.\\
'''Stewie:''' [[LampshadeHanging Oh, that's such a douche time traveler thing to say.]]

* Invoked without time travel in ''WesternAnimation/{{King}}''. In an episode where King Russel and his friends are charged with a crime they haven't done yet by the Future Infractions Bureau. While on the run and figuring out what they will have done (which is [[ItMakesSenseInContext not kicking the shin of an alien ambassador, starting a quickly-lost galactic war]]), to keep themselves off the F.I.B.'s radars (which track all usage of future tenses), they intentionally screw up their verb tenses and only referred to future events with past or present tenses. There were a couple slip-ups, followed by an F.I.B. ambush.

* Of course, this problem affects only languages with compulsory tense-marking.
** For example, English mandates tense-marking of verbs ("went", "am going" and "will go" for "go", for instance), while Chinese leaves the verb alone and puts time markers around it ("go yesterday", "go now" and "go tomorrow").

** Leaving for work? "Have a good day.. er.. night!"
** Eating lunch at 2 AM? That's weird - even though that's what almost everyone calls the meal they eat in the middle of their shift.
** People who work at hotels, apartment buildings, etc and other open-24-hour places often are never sure to say "good morning" or "good evening" between midnight and 4 AM, because the early risers are all mixed up with the people returning from a late night out, and each may end up with the person replying "It's not morning/night, it's night/morning!"

** In ''[[ComicBook/Supergirl2005 Supergirl vol. #5]]'' issue #22, Supergirl runs into this trouble when she remembers that she travelled to the far future and fought/will fight alongside the ''ComicBook/{{Legion Of Super-Heroes}}''.

** In "The Farnsworth Parabox," an analogous situation arises while discussing parallel worlds.
-->'''Professor Farnsworth:''' Nonsense! I would never do such a thing unless you were already having been going to do that!

-->'''Fry:''' No, no! What have I will have done?

* ''Series/TwelveMonkeys'' is surprisingly light on these for a show with, on average, half a dozen instances of time travel per episode. But there are a few.

** Or talking about today's events, which could be their yesterday or tomorrow depending on where you are. Things like New Year are regularly quite amusing since half the world literally already lives in a different year.

* In ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' storyline ''ComicBook/AMindSwitchInTime'', ComicBook/{{Superboy}} runs into this trouble when he tells his parents he is going to the future for, ahem, this month Legion of Super-Heroes' meeting.
-->'''Superboy:''' So long, Ma and Pa. I'm off to the [31st] century for... this month's... regular Legion meeting.

* ''Series/Lost'': In Season 5, Hurley completely fails to understand how a StableTimeLoop works, thinking that characters who are time-travelling can't die because they're in the past, which Miles, much to his frustration, has to explain is not the case.

** The Luteces casually lampshade and debate this in front of the player. Their discussion is ''very'' confusing.
-->'''Robert:''' I told you they'd come.\\

** Also, in the game's intro, Robert notes that the player "doesn't row". [[spoiler: He means that (looking from a future perspective) the player ''never'' rows, in any of the timelines. Rosalind misinterprets this as "The player doesn't know how to row, isn't a rower".]]
-->'''Rosalind:''' Why?\\

* A frequent out-of-universe problem when trying to describe events crossing ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', due to the major differences in how the retcon affected different characters and different past events. A few characters were rebooted as completely new characters (Franchise/WonderWoman), some were made so that they had been around before the Crisis, but their personalities and histories suddenly had always been very different from what all previous comics portrayed (Franchise/{{Superman}}), some were erased from history (''Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}''), and some had basically the same history and memory that they had had before the Crisis (Franchise/TheFlash, Franchise/GreenLantern). Therefore, there's both the reader's perception of what "Pre-Crisis" and "ComicBook/PostCrisis" means (Pre-Crisis: [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver-]] and UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}}, ComicBook/PostCrisis: [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark-]] and Modern Age), and there's the characters' perception of what "Pre Crisis" and "Post Crisis" means (basically: Pre Crisis: Before [[Franchise/TheFlash Barry]] and ''[[Comicbook/{{Supergirl}} Kara]]'' died, Post Crisis: after Barry and Kara died). This leads to descriptions like "After the Crisis, Batman changed so that he had been dark and brooding both before and after Barry died."\\

* ComicBook/{{Cable}} is this trope ''personified'', as there's often no telling from which point in his life the Cable you're dealing with is actually from. It would be ''completely possible'' for him to be KilledOffForReal, and ''still'' continue to appear in comics simply because he hasn't died ''yet''. The best you have is a few markers, like whether or not he's currently infected with the T-O virus, or if he has Belle.[[note]]A sentient A.I. who helps manage his time travel abilities.[[/note]] However even ''that'' isn't a given.

--->'''Few hours older Miles:''' If you're me from the past, shouldn't I feel bad? ... \\

* The sisters (Prue in particular) in ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' always run into difficulty when trying to get their heads around the concept of tenses when time travel is involved.
-->'''Prue:''' We barely got away as it was... Is. Will be. You know, I've never been good with tenses.

* ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'' has something like this:
-->'''Marty:''' It's my fault -- the whole thing is my fault. If I hadn't bought that damn book, then none of this would've happened.\\