[shun]

I asked: Really, do you agree or not that tense is used to express time? Which one tense is used to express time, in your belief? How to prove it? I will use your method to prove Simple Present says present time.

Originally Posted by riverkid

I'm quite sure that Mr Pedantic pointed out this special use of the present simple tense so there's no need to go into it any further.

My reply: I am afraid you have skipped a lot of important questions. Did Mr Pedantic say what you will agree or not? Did Mr Pedantic mention how you will prove it at all? I have listed a lot of Simple Present examples from newspapers. We have to go into these examples further, because you asked me to provide such examples.

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You challenged me to "Provide some examples if you want where English speakers use the present simple to describe particular incidents." Therefore I provided some Simple Present examples:

Nevertheless, here are some examples:
Ex: You do as I say.
Ex: Please pass me the salt.
Ex: Go in and take a look.
Ex: I now put the chicken into the oven.

You then wrote: Can you explain the differences between these examples?

My reply: Why shall I explain the difference? I am pointing out the sameness in them, their characteristic. These Simple Present examples are not habitual actions, aren't they? Every day we would make countless Simple Present statements like these. They prove Simple Present doesn't relate habitual actions.

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Originally Posted by riverkid

Again, give us some examples from the movies you have in mind. Tense is sometimes used to express time. But English also uses tense to express modality.

My reply: Examples are like what I have said above. I guess you want to say you haven't seen any Simple Present use at all in movies, so you can't think of any by yourself.

We talk about Simple Present actions like these:
Ex: You do as I say.
Ex: Please pass me the salt.
Ex: Go in and take a look.
Ex: I now put the chicken into the oven.
== They are also said in movies!!!

Newspapers do use Simple Present, actually much more often than Present Progressive:
Ex1: Several groups, including the National Abortion Federation and the Center for Reproductive Rights, plan to challenge the measure in court as soon as it is signed into law.
Ex2: The reality remains that Tung will be at the helm until and unless Beijing leaders think otherwise.
Ex3: The 30 new candidates come from around the world, from Australia to Zagreb, Vietnam to Venice, and on the whole follow John Paul's conservative bent.
Ex4: The Israeli government says it needs the new buildings because of the "natural growth" of the settlements. However, the "road map" does not take that into account in its blanket building freeze.
Ex5: A final vote in the U.S. Senate B remains before Congress sends the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (S. 3) to President Bush for his signature. The bill represents the first direct national restriction on any method of abortion since the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand in 1973.
Ex6: Nevertheless, some Democratic senators who oppose the bill, including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), prevented the vote from occurring before the Senate began a 10-day recess on October 3. This means that the necessary Senate vote cannot occur earlier than mid-October.
Ex7: Seventy percent of Americans support a ban on partial-birth abortion.
Ex8: Italy's U.N. Ambassador Marcello Spatafora, whose country holds the EU presidency, moved between the two groups, sometimes with the British or French ambassadors alongside......
Ex9: The U.S.-backed "road map" plan requires a freeze on construction in the roughly 150 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians hope to establish an independent state in the two territories, which Israel captured during the 1967 Middle East war.
Ex10: It warns that "a new boom and bust is in the making and will likely start to show up at the end of next year or the beginning of 2005".

I don't understand why you keep asking me to provide examples to you. After I have provided some, you say "there's no need to go into it any further", and then ask me to provide more. This confuses me.