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Reported Speech Help

If somebody (David) says

"Cecil is an incompetent employee."

Would it be:
David said Cecil was an incompetent employee.

or

David said Cecil is an incompetent employee.

It's a little confusing. What if the speech is being reported from a situation that happened just moments ago? In that situation Cecil (in David's opinion) would still be an incompetent employee, so "was" seems unsuitable.

I hope somebody can help!

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1

evantej

Original post by Kare_Raisu

The tense of the reported action is irrelevant as the reported speech is past tense in both your examples. If you want to convey a 'present progressive' tense then it would be better to alter your first verb. For example, 'David says Cecil is an incompetent employee'.