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Anonymous Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Confused about is or was

Hello,

I'm new here and just read a forum here. I am confused about is and was.

To make it simple, I thought of this example:

I went to the beach yesterday. The water was crystal clear.

Does it imply the water at that beach today is no longer crystal clear?
Or if you want to emphasize that the water is still crystal clear, should I say this?

I went to the beach yesterday. The water is crystal clear.

Thanks,
Eli
  

Top answer

If you were at the beach yesterday then, logically, you can't say anything about the condition of the water today. I went to the beach yesterday. The water was crystal clear.

— RayH

  • If you were at the beach yesterday then, logically, you can't say anything about the condition of the water today.
  • I went to the beach yesterday.
  • The water was crystal clear.
  • This speaks only about the condition of the water while you were there, not about it's condition before you arrived or after you left.
  • Frankly, this seems to me to be just common sense not anything to do with grammar.
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4 Answers
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If you were at the beach yesterday then, logically, you can't say anything about the condition of the water today.

I went to the beach yesterday. The water was crystal clear.
This speaks only about the condition of the water while you were there, not about it's condition before you arrived or after you left. Frankly, this seems to me to be just common sense not
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Thanks for your response.

Is it not possible to say 'is' in the example to indicate a statement of fact about the beach I went to yesterday that the clarity of the water never changes and is always clear?


I went to the beach yesterday. The water is crystal clear.
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The water was crystal clear, as it always is.

OR

The water was as crystal clear as it always is.
OR
The water is always crystal clear there and yesterday was no exception.

There are many possible ways to say what you want but you can't expect a tiny little word like "is" to bear the whole load.
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Please bear with me. I just wanted to know how a native speaker would interpret a sentence -- from a non-native speaker like me -- with plainly is or was as in my example.

Usually, English books would say the use of past tense describes a condition that is no longer true, so I misunderstood the the use of 'was' in my example as suggesting that the water is no longer
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