“God is a verb.” Buckminister Fuller

Verbs are our favourite part of speech. They are action words—the heartbeat of language.

In the business writing we review, we notice that many people overcomplicate or misuse verb tenses. The tense of a verb places the action at a particular time, and it’s important to be precise. To refresh your memory, here’s a review of the main tenses.

Simple Present: expresses daily habits or usual activities. I eat lunch.

Present Perfect: is used to describe an action that started in the past and continues to the present moment, or an action that was finished at some earlier time. I have eaten lunch.

Present Progressive: expresses an activity that is in progress right now.
I am eating lunch.

Simple Past: is used to refer to events that began and ended in the past.
I ate lunch.

Past Perfect: this is a double past tense—expressing an event that happened before another past event. I had already eaten lunch when I saw your invitation.

Past Progressive: expresses an activity that was in progress at a point of time in the past. I was eating lunch when you called.

Simple Future: expresses something that will happen in the future. I will eat lunch.

Future Perfect: expresses an action finished before a specific time in the future. By 2 pm, I will have eaten lunch.

Future Progressive: expresses something that will be in progress at a point of time in the future. I expect to be eating lunch when you call.

Print Friendly