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At the annual Conference of World Tenses, each language sent a representative to present its future tense.
French sent the futur simple: Je mangerai. Clean. Conjugated. A dedicated form.
Spanish sent three: the simple future, the periphrastic future, and the future subjunctive — because Spanish likes to be prepared.
Japanese sent the non-past, because in Japanese the present and future are the same. “Context will tell you,” said the delegate. “We are Zen about this.”
Then it was English’s turn. English walked to the podium empty-handed.
“English,” said the chair, “please present your future tense.”
“I don’t have one.”
Silence.
“You don’t have a future tense.”
“No. I have ‘will.’ Which is really a modal verb. And ‘going to.’ Which is a periphrastic construction. And the present continuous — ‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’ And the present simple — ‘The train leaves at 8.’ None of these is a future tense. They’re all workarounds.”
“So how do you express the future?”
“We borrow from other grammatical categories and hope for the best.”
The chair stared. “You are the most widely spoken language on Earth and cannot say definitively what will happen.”
“We think it adds mystery,” said English.
The conference issued a formal reprimand. English ignored it. It was, after all, in the future.
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