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Lissle Posted 14 years ago
Grammar
It is/was her own fault?
The following are two sentences I read in «Longman Language Activator»:
1.He played very well, and it "is" not his fault we lost.
2.Marie failed the exam, but it "was" her own fault - she didn't do any
work.
The verbs in the second sentence are all past tense ; however, the be- verb in the first sentence is present tense . Since these two sentences are both about the use of the noun "fault" , I wonder what the difference is?
Besides, what is the difference between the following two pairs of sentences?:
1. It is my mistake that I lost the car. 2. It was my mistake that I lost the car
1.That's how Dad did it. 2.That was how Dad did it ?
1.He played very well, and it "is" not his fault we lost.
2.Marie failed the exam, but it "was" her own fault - she didn't do any
work.
The verbs in the second sentence are all past tense ; however, the be- verb in the first sentence is present tense . Since these two sentences are both about the use of the noun "fault" , I wonder what the difference is?
Besides, what is the difference between the following two pairs of sentences?:
1. It is my mistake that I lost the car. 2. It was my mistake that I lost the car
1.That's how Dad did it. 2.That was how Dad did it ?
Top answer
There is no difference in the first pair. While I agree that #1 is a bit uncommon, most native speaker utterances are based on feelings, not grammar: for that speaker, the loss remains 'his' fault. The same logic applies to your other sentences: the speaker is either thinking about the past or steeped in the present.
- There is no difference in the first pair.
- While I agree that #1 is a bit uncommon, most native speaker utterances are based on feelings, not grammar: for that speaker, the loss remains 'his' fault.
- The same logic applies to your other sentences: the speaker is either thinking about the past or steeped in the present.
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3 Answers
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There is no difference in the first pair. While I agree that #1 is a bit uncommon, most native speaker utterances are based on feelings, not grammar: for that speaker, the loss remains 'his' fault.
The same logic applies to your other sentences: the speaker is either thinking about the past or steeped in the present.
The same logic applies to your other sentences: the speaker is either thinking about the past or steeped in the present.
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Lissle1.He played very well, and it "is" not his fault we lost.It's not his fault. - A present time judgement on what happened in the past.
Lissle2.Marie failed the exam, but it "was" her own fault - she didn't do any work.It was her fault. - A judgement made about a past time event.
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LissleHe played very well, and it is not his fault we lost.Sometimes the use of the present instead of the past extracts the proposition out of historical time and looks at it purely in terms of abstract logic.
Marie failed the exam, but it was her own fault - she didn't do any work.
He played well. (historical) It's not his fault we lost. (non-
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