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Submitted by belinda on Thu, 09/04/2008 - 09:28.
has been and was....

One of my students came to me with a question - looking for an answer that I don't think I could give satisfactorily. Any help?
His question was - what is the difference between:

"This program was brought to you by (Company X)"
"This program has been brought to you by (Company X)" ........................................????

I think you could use either without any native English speaker getting confused/angry...... but he wanted to know why both exist and are used at different times....

thanks!
belinda



Answers

RoseJeide
1 of 1 people found this answer helpful.
Thu, 09/04/2008 - 11:34
A:

"has been" -- Journalism classes tell you to use this form whenever writing to make it seem like it's still happening but at the same time it's still something that occurred in the past. It helps you to "connect" with your audience more. So, "was" makes it seem like a random fact whereas "has been" makes it seem like something really awesome that Company X might still be doing for you... Yeah, I just memorized the rule while in university and that was it...

mbaczynski
0 of 1 people found this answer helpful.
Thu, 09/04/2008 - 12:20
A:

though this would go good here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7595509.stm

belinda
0 of 0 people found this answer helpful.
Thu, 09/04/2008 - 17:06
A:

Thanks peoples! I'm still not sure I have my head wrapped around mixing the past and present etc.,...... but it's an anwser and my student was most happy he got one - even though his head was tilted the whole time he was listening to the help I'd been given.

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