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Passive Voice

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 6:34 am
by sherrychan
'Driving down the main high street, hardly a single building is left standing.'

The building is not destroyed at the time the reporter passes through, but when the typhoon arrived a few days ago, why the passive voice in this sentence is using present tense but not past tense or present perfect tense?

Thank you very much!

Re: Passive Voice

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 11:50 pm
by Alan
It' s called the historic present, a special use of the present tense to make past events seem more 'alive' to the listener/reader.