Tense of the past progressive with always

Question

Hi^^ I'm a student learning English. I learned in a class that either present or past progressive can be used to express a negative reaction to a situation. The explanations on the lecture note professor gave are written like

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The present progressive is often used with always to express a negative reaction to a situation.

He's always calling me "Sweetie." I hate that name.

The past progressive with always can also be used to criticize actions we feel are annoying, or which we wish to exaggerate.

At school, he was always getting into trouble.

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I confused because the explanation about past progressive shows that we use past progressive to criticize actions we feel(present) are annoying. Does past progressive with always have the same tense with the present progressive with always?

Answer 1

There are a couple of misunderstandings here.

The first is that although the BE always VERBing construction is often used when you are annoyed at the action, it does not imply that you are annoyed. You can also use the construction when your attitude is one of pleasure or admiration:

Whenever I see her she's always smiling.
Even when he's hurt he's always trying harder than any other player on the field.

The second is that even when BE^past always VERBing is used in a context expressing annoyance, it does not ascribe your annoyance to any particular time. It perhaps more likely to express past annoyance than present annoyance:

He was always getting into trouble, and getting us into trouble with him. I stopped running around with him.

The situation's different, of course, with exaggeration, which is by definition a property of what you are saying now.

The lesson in this is that you have to be careful to distinguish between what a particular form of expression can mean and what it does mean in any particular context. Much, perhaps even most meaning in our use of language derives from the situation rather than the linguistic forms.