It's war. The next time Melvyn Bragg uses or permits the use of the present tense in speaking about the past, those noises off will be the sound of Today presenter John Humphrys grinding his teeth and sharpening his battle-axe.

"This is important, this is a battle… the war is going to be about stuff like this," Humphrys said, throwing down the gauntlet on the Radio 4 programme Broadcasting House.

"I have to tell you that the great Matthew Parris of the Times is with me on this, and we are as one in opposition to Melvyn Bragg, on the use of the historic present. He allows it to be used on In Our Time," he said. "It gives a bogus, an entirely bogus, sense of immediacy; it is irritating, it is pretentious."

Humphrys may just have been kicking up sand to distract from the reason he appeared on Broadcasting House, where presenter Paddy O'Connell is bravely inviting listeners to send in their "pet peeves" – BBC sins against the English language. Humphrys was pulled up for using the word "proactive", which he admitted he loathed, earlier in the week on the Today programme.

"I couldn't think of anything else to say at the time," he said, laughing helplessly. "That's the point, isn't it? These words seep into the consciousness, and so I said it – and I'm ashamed now. Proactive is one of those words that drives me a bit potty.

"We use words like 'enormity', for instance; people use it to mean 'big' – well, it doesn't. Disinterested instead of uninterested, problems instead of issues – all of that sort of stuff weakens the language, that's what concerns me.

"And it isn't about pedantry, I don't care if somebody splits the infinitive or ends a sentence with a preposition – [I] couldn't care less . But I do care about losing important words, because we haven't got them any longer."

'Titan of broadcasting' Melvyn Bragg.

Humphrys swiftly moved on to the use of the present tense when speaking of history. He took particular exception to a trail for a Radio 4 programme, part of the 1914 centenary programming, in which the presenter said: "What is astounding about the organisation of both British empire and British intelligence is how haphazard and ramshackle the whole thing is."

That was going to baffle listeners who thought the British empire was gone, Humphrys said. "We're speaking like the headlines in newspapers – you know, 'the Queen arrives in Glasgow' … Well, she arrived in Glasgow six hours ago. What's wrong with the past tense? It tells us what happened in the past."

Humphrys turned seamlessly to Bragg and the use of the historic present on his Radio 4 show In Our Time. Bragg and Humphrys – the sons of a mechanic and a French polisher respectively, and both grammar school educated – are award-laden big beasts in the broadcasting jungle, and famous sticklers for accuracy. Both are former winners of the Broadcasting Press Guild's annual Harvey Lee award for outstanding contributions to broadcasting.

Bragg, now Lord Bragg of Wigton, is author of The Adventure of English, billed as "the biography of a language", as well as myriad fiction and non-fiction books. Humphrys' books include Lost for Words: The Mangling and Manipulation of the English Language, and Beyond Words: How Language Reveals the Way We Live Now.

Humphrys insisted he was terrified of challenging Bragg. "Melvyn is a giant, a titan of broadcasting, as we all know, and it's pretty brave; I wouldn't have gone public with it had it not been for Matthew [Parris]," he said.

"With a bit of luck Melvyn will be on holidays because it's August and he won't have heard this, because I fear the consequences."

So far, no response is emanating from Bragg.