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Which tense is appropriate to use 'works' or 'worked'? Please explain.

1.Leona works harder than any other lawyer in the firm.

2.Leona worked harder than any other lawyer in the firm

2
  • Appropriate for what?
    – Astralbee
    Nov 1, 2019 at 12:08
  • Needs more context, both are syntactically correct, but for different use cases.
    – MikeB
    Nov 1, 2019 at 12:09

1 Answer 1

1

The obvious answer is that the past tense is used when talking about past events, and the present tense is used for speaking about the present.

Leona works harder than any other lawyer in the firm.

This indicates that Leona currently works in the law firm and that it is your current opinion she works hard than any other lawyer.

The past tense is the most common tense for fiction, as it follows the natural tendency of retelling a story or events in a chronological way:

Leona worked harder than any other lawyer in the law firm.

There are also situations where we default to using the past tense, for example, if you did not know that Leona still worked at the law firm:

-"I remember Leona - she worked at that law firm."
-"Yes, and she still works there."

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