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Peaceblinkfriend Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

The manual you gave was/is very useful.

The manual you gave was/is very useful.

If I am still finding the manual useful, does it matter if I use either one?

Since the manual was given to me in the past, if 'is' was used, does the consistency of tenses matter?

Thank you

PBF

[Edit] italicised example
  

Top answer

The manual you gave me was /is very useful. [You should know about the need for this me/you/him by now ... Focus.

— Marius Hancu

  • The manual you gave me was /is very useful.
  • [You should know about the need for this me/you/him by now ...
  • Focus.
  • The English always prefer the consistency of tenses, but you could use is to emphasize it is still useful.
  • Use italics for examples, as I do, in order to separate from your questions.
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4 Answers
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The manual you gave me was/is very useful. [You should know about the need for this me/you/him by now ... Focus.

The English always prefer the consistency of tenses, but you could use is to emphasize it is still useful.
Use italics for examples, as I do, in order to separate from your questions.
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Thank you for your reply Marius Hancu.

If I use 'was' instead, do I still give the impression that it is useful? By the way, I always thought that you could leave out the subject, 'me' in this case, if you wanted it to be informal.

And also, I meant to say 'inconsistency' rather than 'consistency'. It was a typo.

Thank you again

PBF
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>By the way, I always thought that you could leave out the subject, 'me' in this case, if you wanted it to be informal.
>The manual you gave was/is very useful.
That's not a subject, it's an indirect object, you gave (TO) ME. You can't leave it out in any situation and for any verb. Find the real subject.
The rest I said and will not repeat.
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