History Main / SuspiciouslySpecificTense

* Played with in ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'': "Such a nice plump frame what's-his-name has...had...has." The switch back is because even though Pirelli is now dead, Mrs. Lovett is contemplating [[ImAHumanitarian baking him into a pie]], for which purposes he ''does'' still have the nice plump frame.

-->--'''Creator/MitchHedberg'''

* IrregularWebcomic, [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1670.html here]]:

* In TheTimeTravelersWife, Henry accidentally reveals when Claire's mother will die on a jaunt to the past.

* In Dragon Flight, creel accidentally reveals that [[spoiler: Shardas]], presumed dead in the first book, is alive by telling another dragon, " why shouldn't I tell[[spoiler: Shardas]]. He and I are friends." " Are?" she then has to tell all, but it works out for the best.

* ''Life With Father'':

* In ''CyranoDeBergerac'', Roxane realizes [[spoiler: Christian]] has just died when Cyrano slips and refers to him in the past tense.

* In an issue of {{Spider-Man}}, an enforcer and a corrupt gym owner are talking about a boxer who wants to leave the gym.

* In the first ''Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' movie, during the confrontation with Shredder, the BigBad implies that the Turtles' master is dead through the use of this trope:

* A source of MemeticMutation regarding the SuperSmashBros Brawl website, which when first revealed Lucas, mentioned Ness as a character who appeared in the Smash Bros series "up until now". That phrase coupled with Lucas' obvious similarity to Ness convinced everyone that Ness wasn't coming back. Ultimately Ness did in fact come back.

* On ''TheSpectacularSpiderMan,'' Harry has found evidence that the Green Goblin was never his own SuperpoweredEvilSide, despite having believed it himself:

* In ''SpaceQuest IV'', Roger Wilco meets his future son. Showing his father a volumetric display of his mother (i.e. Roger's future wife), Roger Jr. remarks "she was quite beautiful". When Roger Sr. presses on him about the word "was", the young man pleas that he cannot explain.

* In LordOfTheRings, Gandalf realizes Saruman isn't living in Orthanc after Treebeard uses words such as "was" and "dwelt" in a conversation about Saruman (though Saruman's departure was important enough that it would have been brought up anyways).

* A variant is done in ''EllaEnchanted''. While Ella is well aware of the death of her mother, hearing Hattie referring to her mother in the past tense is shocking enough for Ella to not snipe back at Hattie's rude behavior.

* In ''{{CSI}}'', Captain Brass starts reinvestigating one of his old cases, the apparently accidental death of a woman, when he sees her husband out on the town with a [[SuspiciousSpending brand new sports car]]. He later tells the husband that he should've been suspicious as soon as he (the husband) told Brass, right after the accident, that he ''loved'' his wife. In Brass' experience, someone facing a loved one's death so soon after said event usually hasn't processed it enough to refer to them in the past tense (and in his case, it wasn't even clear to anyone else that she wouldn't make it). Although the investigation doesn't lead to a conviction (yet) and the suspect's lawyer even scoffs at Brass basing his case on the "past tense" theory, it's more than enough for the ''insurance company'' to initiate its own investigation... starting with towing away the suspect's car.

** ''{{CSI}}'' also use it occasionally to subtly reveal, when children are present, that someone has died: "He ''was'' your client."
* In ''{{Lost}}'' where, moments before we saw [[spoiler:Daniel get killed, Widmore says of him in the future, "He was my son, too." If we weren't too stunned by the paternity revelation to notice it, we knew Daniel was toast.]]

* In ''TimeAfterTime'', H.G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper to 1979 San Francisco and accidentally uses the wrong tense due to his obvious ignorance of 20th Century history when talking to a female bank teller about women's liberation.

* At a potential crime scene in ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' where an abandoned car filled with blood has been discovered, Sherlock questions a woman as to her husband's supposed state of mind leading up to the presumed suicide. She uses past tense when describing him, something he finds suspicious considering they've only ''just'' found the car. John figures that she might have killed him, but Sherlock brushes off the tense as something a murderer [[GenreSavvy would specifically know to get "wrong"]]. [[spoiler:Turns out the husband had faked his own death to avoid money troubles; his wife was in on it and spreading the idea that he was deeply depressed]].

** While being interrogated about the whereabouts of her children (she claimed that they had been kidnapped by a carjacker), Susan Smith repeatedly said, "I loved them, they were my life". The already suspicious cops picked up on her constant use of past tense and soon came to the correct conclusion that Susan had murdered her children.
** Mark Hacking called the police to report that his wife Lori had failed to return from her morning jog. Speaking to the press as he organized a search party, he made several incriminating statements such as, "I know I'm searching for someone who's hurt", and "If she's not there (in the park where she usually went for her run), then that means that the unimaginable happened." Already leery of his story, the police found it odd that he was jumping to such grim conclusions so early into the investigation and began to speculate that he already knew that the worst had happened to Lori. Sure enough, after several days, Hacking finally confessed to having killed his wife.

* While being interrogated about the whereabouts of her children (she claimed that they had been kidnapped by a carjacker), Susan Smith repeatedly said, "I loved them, they were my life". The already suspicious cops picked up on her constant use of past tense and soon came to the correct conclusion that Susan had murdered her children.
* Mark Hacking called the police to report that his wife Lori had failed to return from her morning jog. Speaking to the press as he organized a search party, he made several incriminating statements such as, "I know I'm searching for someone who's hurt", and "If she's not there (in the park where she usually went for her run), then that means that the unimaginable happened." Already leery of his story, the police found it odd that he was jumping to such grim conclusions so early into the investigation and began to speculate that he already knew that the worst had happened to Lori. Sure enough, after several days, Hacking finally confessed to having killed his wife.

-->-- '''MitchHedberg'''

* As stated below, someone who has recently had a loved one die can have trouble processing that information and adjusting verb tenses. In ''PetSematary'' (novel only, doesn't happen in the movie), Louis (a doctor) uses this, among other details of the conversation, to check Jud's mental functioning after [[spoiler:his wife Norma dies suddenly]]. Jud's doing as well as can be expected, with no reason to worry about his mental health, Louis decides.

* In ''The Growing Pains of AdrianMole'', Adrian is writing about "Stick Insect", the woman he thinks is his father's ex-mistress: "I have just realized that Stick Insect used the present tense when she was referring to her relationship with my father. [[DramaticIrony It is absolutely disgraceful.]] [[ComicallyMissingThePoint A woman of thirty not knowing the fundamentals of grammar!]]"

* In ''{{CSI}}'', Captain Brass starts reinvestigating one of his old cases, the apparently accidental death of a woman, when he sees her husband out on the town with a brand new sports car. He later tells the husband that he should've been suspicious as soon as he (the husband) told Brass, right after the accident, he ''loved'' his wife. In Brass' experience, someone facing a loved one's death so soon after said event usually hasn't processed it enough to refer to them in the past tense (and in his case, it wasn't even clear at the time that she wouldn't make it)). Although the investigation doesn't lead to a conviction (yet) and the suspect's lawyer even scoffs at Brass basing his case on the "past tense" theory, it's more than enough for the ''insurance company'' to initiate its own investigation... starting with towing away the suspect's car.

* In ''{{CSI}}'', Captain Brass starts reinvestigating one of his old cases, the apparently accidental death of a woman, when he sees her husband out on the town with a brand new sports car. He later tells the husband that he should've been suspicious as soon as he (the husband) told Brass, right after the accident, he ''loved'' his wife. In Brass' experience, someone facing a loved one's death so soon after said event usually hasn't processed it enough to refer to them in the past tense. Although the investigation doesn't lead to a conviction (yet) and the suspect's lawyer even scoffs at Brass basing his case on the "past tense" theory, it's more than enough for the ''insurance company'' to initiate its own investigation... starting with towing away the suspect's car.