Grammar Q, tense: "I was ready to X but there was no Y"?

Question

As in "I was ready to bake but there were no ovens available."

(Talking about last week. I am not currently engaged in any kind of baking process. The availability of ovens is now unknown.)

The meaning and poor choice of words aside, is the use of 'were' correct in this sentence?

Answer 1

yes, it's all past-tense, so your use of 'were' is correct.

Answer 2

The sentence you wrote is grammatically correct and makes perfect sense: "I was ready to bake but there were no ovens available."

Answer 3

yes

Answer 4

If you are just referring to the time at which you wanted to bake, the ordinary past tense 'were' is perfectly correct.  The past perfect 'had been' would only be used if you were talking about a period leading up to that time.  For example: 'I wanted to bake on Sunday, but no ovens had been available since the previous Wednesday'.

It would be possible to use both tenses in the same sentence, e.g. 'I wanted to bake on Sunday, but all the ovens WERE unavailable, and HAD BEEN so since the previous Wednesday'.

It would make no difference if you changed 'Sunday' to a longer time (e.g. 'last week') or a shorter one (e.g. 'at 8pm last Sunday').  It still refers to a single unit of time (i.e. when you wanted to bake).

I hope this helps.

Answer 5

Yes, the use of 'were' is correct in the sentence.

'Ovens' is plural in the sentence, so you would use 'were' for subject/verb agreemant.

Was ovens would not be correct.