To get annoyed about use of present tense in TV (historical) documentaries?

[pearlkent]

This has been bugging me for a few years now and it's become epidemic.
In any TV programme talking about the past (eg. last night that one about tracing family history in the Liverpool house) the experts/narrators ALWAYS speak in the present tense - eg. "war breaks out" instead of "war broke out". It's confusing and grammatically wrong surely?
I can only assume it's to make the subject more "interesting/appealing" but it really grates on me.

I don't like poor English use, so agree with you OP.

@DavidTheDog: I found this thread (and site) because I was trying to find out what this annoying (to me and plenty of others I'm kind of glad to see) wrong-tense thing in documentaries is. And now I know there's a name, that's good - historical present. It doesn't make it any better for watching TV programmes - but if anyone uses it face to to face in an annoying fashion, I'll be able to ask them "So you're a great fan of the historical present, then?" and wait for the cogs in their brains to grind themselves to paste (I suspect 95% of people using and abusing the technique haven't much of a grasp of grammar).

I wasn't able to use my actual name - which /isn't/ actually erhfjkfrehj2323, because my own name and all sorts of variants were blocked. My actual name is frhiw67pnn1. No, not really, it's Gordon Panther. Surely this website has NOT already got a user called Gordon Panther! Mind you, now I see you are called DavidTheDog and not David The Dog, and looking at other names, I suspect it's the space that was the problem. It didn't say that though - it said something that sounded like the name was already taken.

So - new thread suggestion: "Websites that ask you for a user name but don't let you use your actual name and fail to clearly state that the reason you can't use your name is not because it is already taken by another user but because you have used a space within - as is, in fact, a traditional means of separating ones given and family names, thus resulting in one ending up with a silly user name like erhfjkfrehj2323" - and (after a deep breathe)... Discuss. Cos this is not the first time it's happened (mental note to self: think about spaces next time it happens, you numbskull)

YANBU
I so wholeheartedly agree with you that I went to the trouble of logging in just to say so. Now I will log out again.