<p>I fiercely clenched my ticket as a child hugs a teddy bear.</p>
<p>Is that grammatically correct?</p>
<p>no because one action is in the past tense and the other is in the present tense. the word “as” implies that the two actions are in the same tense</p>
<p>As a child hugged?</p>
<p>Well what if you are using as for a simile?</p>
<p>I know this is weak, but it sounds right to me. Some idiomatic phrases such as this often defies grammatical rules.</p>
<p>Or maybe like “…a child would hug a…” ?</p>
<p>I think it should be would hug? Hugged doesn’t sound right.</p>
<p>Well what if you are using as for a simile? </p>
<p>It cannot be a simile juding from the context. A child does not fiercely clench a teddy bear.</p>
<p>fiercely clenched my ticket as a child hugs a teddy bear.</p>
<p>It can be “fiercely clench my ticket as a child hugs a teddy bear”
or " fiercely clenched my ticket as a child hugged a teddy bear"</p>
<p>I see i see. So tense must be matching… Ok thanks guys.</p>