Word Choice – Why not ‘Hurts’ in ‘Hard Work Never Hurt Anyone’?

word-choice

I saw this sentence:

Hard work never hurt anyone.

It's a good phrase, but I wonder why it is 'hurt' not 'hurts'? I think 'hurts' (3rd-person singular present) is more correct. Why is it 'hurt'?

Best Answer

In the idiom or proverb

Hard work never hurt anyone.

"hurt" is actually a past tense. It could be recast as

Hard work never did anyone harm.

It can be confusing that for regular English verbs, the simple past form is identical to one of the present tense forms (plural).

Much the same meaning could be expressed in the present tense, as

Hard work never hurts anyone.

But for whatever historical reason, this is not the form that became a standard fixed phrase.

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