'what happened is that...' or ' 'what happened was that....'

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jinhyun - 23 Jan 2007 12:06 GMT

Hi. Recently I found myself using the form 'What happened was that...'
. But on thinking about it, 'What happened is that...' sounds better;
the argument being that 'what happened', even though it happened in
the past, is a current fact,i.e 'what happened' hasn't changed since it
happpened - it's still what it was. But I'm still not convinced. And
the more I agitate it,the more confusing it becomes. So I thought I had
better refer it to my mates on this site. Sorry if this is a bit silly.
I have an inkling that I am missing some elementary point on which the
whole issue palpably hangs. But perhaps not. Anyway,thanks in advance
for any replies.

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Lars Eighner - 23 Jan 2007 12:41 GMT

> Hi. Recently I found myself using the form 'What happened was that...'
> . But on thinking about it, 'What happened is that...' sounds better;
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> whole issue palpably hangs. But perhaps not. Anyway,thanks in advance
> for any replies.

In this particular case it doesn't matter, although various writers will
have their preferences. I think most will prefer "was." "Is" is possible
because of the particular meaning of "what happened," which as you know
implies past events which are immutable. It would be a mistake to
generalize from this special case.

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Marius Hancu - 23 Jan 2007 12:46 GMT

> In this particular case it doesn't matter, although various writers will
> have their preferences. I think most will prefer "was."

Indeed, but not by a large margin. At Google, in hits on two educated
sites:

106 from nytimes.com for "what happened is that".
143 from nytimes.com for "what happened was that"

178 from bbc.co.uk for "what happened is that"
266 from bbc.co.uk for "what happened was that"

Marius Hancu

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cybercypher - 23 Jan 2007 13:05 GMT

> Hi. Recently I found myself using the form 'What happened was
> that...' . But on thinking about it, 'What happened is that...'
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> issue palpably hangs. But perhaps not. Anyway,thanks in advance
> for any replies.

Both forms are grammatically correct. The present-tense form gives what
follows a bit more immediacy and suggest that it's still relevant. But
it's strictly a style preference.

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

'what happened is that...' or ' 'what happened was that....'