Wednesday, December 14, 2011

tenses - “Has been” vs. “was”



Should one use has been or was in the following sentence, and why?






  • For many years the USA has been a British colony.

  • For many years the USA was a British colony.



Answer



"Was" is the correct word to use. Why?



If we were to rearrange the sentence a little, we would see why:






  1. The USA has been a British colony for many years

  2. The USA was a British colony for many years.




Example 1 indicates that the USA is still a British colony, and has been a British colony for many years.



Example 2 indicates that USA used to be a British colony, but possibly is no longer.




Thus, "was" would be more appropriate in this case.




For many years, the USA was a British colony.



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