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Jon8 Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

Parallel verbs

"Who knew football [is/was] interesting?" Should I use 'was' to since I used 'knew'? Parallel verbs confuse me, shouldn't it be 'is' since it's still interesting (unless you don't like football)? What's the rule of thumb here?
  

Top answer

It's always correct to put what follows the "X knew (that)" construction in the Past tense. ]

— Laborious

  • It's always correct to put what follows the "X knew (that)" construction in the Past tense.
  • ]
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5 Answers
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It's always correct to put what follows the "X knew (that)" construction in the Past tense. For example, She knew [something wrong was going to happen / Jane would love those rings / she was right / It was interesting / she would have to do that etc.]
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This is the most common form, if you were not interested in football until someone explained the game to you. It is a rhetorical question.

Who knew football would be so interesting?

For real questions, just use past tense with past tense. All the action is in the past:
Who knew Sally was coming to the party? I didn't. She surprised me.

Or
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LaboriousIt's always correct to put what follows the "X knew (that)" construction in the Past tense. For example, She knew [something wrong was going to happen / Jane would love those rings / she was right / It was interesting / she would have to do that etc.]
Thank you. My next question is, for the next sentence, can I shift back to the present tense or should
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jon8or the next sentence, can I shift back to the present tense or should I continue to use the past tense for the entire paragraph in order to maintain the parallelism?
Could you please post that sentence or paragraph here? It's difficult for me to know what sort of sentence or paragraph you have in your mind.
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jon8My next question is, for the next sentence, can I shift back to the present tense or should I continue to use the past tense for the entire paragraph in order to maintain the parallelism?
If the whole paragraph is about actions in the past, then use past. If it is about actions both in the past and the present, use the appropriate tense.

Who knew
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