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During a conversation, which is the more natural of the following two sentences? Are both correct?

There have been delays, my bank account hasn't been opened yet.

There have been delays, my bank account isn't open yet.

GiovanS
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  • What are you saying: That the bank hasn't opened your account or that you haven't opened your account at the bank? The listener would want to know the reason for the delays and who is responsible. The more natural statement would be the one that provides the most accurate explanation. – David Page Aug 17 '16 at 20:43
  • Off-topic, but that's a comma splice. You (normally) shouldn't use a comma to connect two independent clauses. Better punctuation choices would be a semicolon or a dash, or you could make them two separate sentences. – Andy Schweig Aug 18 '16 at 00:53
  • I would like to say that the bank hasn't opened my account because they had delays – GiovanS Aug 20 '16 at 14:16

1 Answers1

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Ignoring the comma splice, both are correct. They just say slightly different things.

The first one says that some action is needed to open your account and that action hasn't taken place yet. The second one just says that your account is not yet open. You might prefer the first one if you want to focus on the fact that an action is needed to open the account. You might prefer the second one if you just want them to know your account is not open and don't want to focus on the fact that something has to happen for it to become open.

But it's hard to imagine a situation where one would be correct and the other would be incorrect.

David Schwartz
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