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Can one use transpire in the future tense?

English Language & Usage Asked on July 3, 2021

My partner used the phrase "…. something planned… whether it transpires or not remains to be seen.".

Now, I don’t know for a fact, but I feel that transpir(es/ed) is (or should be) used in the past or presesnt tenses, but not the future – i.e.:

  • It transpires that she didn’t know he was due to arrive.

  • It transpired that he had reneged when he played the club card.

All of the quotes from Collins are in this vein – i.e. no future usage.

However, here it transpires (please excuse the truly awful pun!) that they have an example of transpire in the future:

    1. If you have watched one golf game, then you have seen everything that will transpire in every other game of golf.

Any suggestions – particularly in the form of concrete references (URLs…) much appreciated.

One Answer

Transpire has two related meanings. The second was once beloved of pedants who argued against the first, but the first has a long history of use (see below*):

Transpire:

  1. to happen

“No one is willing to predict what may transpire at the peace conference.”

  1. If it transpires that something has happened, this previously secret or unknown fact becomes known

Cambridge

In either sense, a thing may transpire in the future, and there seems no reason to restrict its use to the present. A present secret may transpire (become known, be revealed) in the future. A thing may transpire (happen) in the future.

*Here is Merriam Webster on the verb:

Sense 1 : to take place : GO ON, OCCUR

Sense 2a : to become known or apparent : DEVELOP

Sense 2b : to be revealed : come to light

Can transpire mean 'to occur'?: Usage Guide Sense 1 of transpire is the frequent whipping boy of those who suppose sense 2 to be the only meaning of the word. Sense 1 appears to have developed in the late 18th century; it was well enough known to have been used by Abigail Adams in a letter to her husband in 1775. there is nothing new transpired since I wrote you last — Abigail Adams Noah Webster recognized the new sense in his dictionary of 1828. Transpire was evidently a popular word with 19th century journalists; sense 1 turns up in such pretentiously worded statements as "The police drill will transpire under shelter to-day in consequence of the moist atmosphere prevailing." Around 1870 the sense began to be attacked as a misuse on the grounds of etymology, and modern critics echo the damnation of 1870. Sense 1 has been in existence for about two centuries; it is firmly established as standard; it occurs now primarily in serious prose, not the ostentatiously flamboyant prose typical of 19th century journalism.

Merriam Webster

Answered by Anton on July 3, 2021

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