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Is this sentence using proper grammar? - "The money was and is not a loan."

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  • The money was (and is) not a loan. The money was, and is, not a loan. The money was not, and is not, a loan.
    – David M
    Mar 21, 2014 at 5:35
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    – tchrist
    Jul 4, 2014 at 2:02

2 Answers 2

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I think you want to say that the money was not taken on loan, and still now it is not. So the correct sentence is " The money was not, and is not a loan "

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  • Would you put another comma after the second not ?
    – Stew
    Mar 21, 2014 at 5:30
  • Yes .. was not, and is not, a loan.
    – user66974
    Mar 21, 2014 at 5:34
  • @stew I would, but I'm a serial comma user.
    – David M
    Mar 21, 2014 at 5:34
  • @Josh61 You might want to update your answer rather than amend it via comments.
    – Andrew Leach
    Mar 21, 2014 at 8:56
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"The money was and is not a loan."

as with all instances of "and", you can expand the sentence to better understand its meaning. But first let's get rid of the "not" to make things simpler (we can add it back later)

"The money was and is a loan"

Both verbs "was" and "is" require a subject and an object, so "money" must act as a subject for both and "loan" as an object for both:

The money was a loan. The money is a loan.

Now let's add "not" back: "not" is added to "be" to form the negative. Due to the "and" it has to be added to both verbs:

"The money [was not] a loan. The money [is not] a loan"

you can add commas to make it more understandable by imitating natural pauses as when spoken: "The money was, and is, not a loan"

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