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Both have >400k hits but from what I learned in school, the former is ungrammatical. Or is it not?

IBM confirmed it is building more data centres in the UK - Business Insider

Mini Confirmed It Is Developing Its First Plug-In Hybrid Model

How about "has confirmed it is/was" ? (I understand the former searches include hits for the latter.)

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    Why would you imagine a Google search has any probative value for determining grammar rules? You can get 111 million hits searching for teh, for pete's sake. What does that prove? And whoever told you "confirmed it is" is ungrammatical ought to go back to school and study harder this time.
    – Robusto
    Commented Jan 17, 2017 at 4:11
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    @Robusto If you cannot explain its apparent disagreement with the famous tense consistency rule, you don't have to try to throw random words to my post.
    – nodakai
    Commented Jan 17, 2017 at 4:16
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    You really can't tell the difference between random words and what I wrote?
    – Robusto
    Commented Jan 17, 2017 at 4:20
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    See my answer to a similar question on English Language & Usage. "The important thing to remember is not to mix tenses in the same context. But using the various tenses when each is appropriate is not something to fear."
    – Robusto
    Commented Jan 17, 2017 at 4:55
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    The "confirmation" (IBM's statement) is different from the "action" (building something), so there is no reason the tenses need to match. We would need to know more about the basis for what you learned in school.
    – user3169
    Commented Jan 17, 2017 at 6:42

2 Answers 2

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A simple test is to add some further text...

'IBM confirmed it is building more data centres in the UK.'

'IBM confirmed it is building more data centres in the UK, whereas only a month ago it was not.'

The same tests hold for the other text. In other words, it is grammatically correct in each case. With 'confirmed it is', the confirmation was made in the past -- the past tense '-ed' of 'confirmed' -- but the action of building centres continues to the present and into the future.

If we change the 'is' to 'was', the action of building centres is fixed in the past, although further text might indicate that the action will continue into the present and beyond...

'Yesterday IBM confirmed it was building more data centres in the UK, and intends to do so for the next few years.'

'IBM confirmed it was building more data centres in the UK, but as of last month is no longer doing so.'

As for Google searches, make them as broad as you wish, and then tighten up the search query. Also, with any Google search, be careful to assess the veracity of any answer -- there's a lot of good information out there, but there's a lot of rubbish as well! The words 'it is' are probably worth omitting in any Google search query, unless you are searching for a specific quote, such as for the poem 'Pleasure it is To hear, iwis', in which case the whole query string is placed in quotes.

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Is is not ungrammatical here, although was is of course also correct. It's used because IBM being in the process of building more data centres yesterday is not felt to be significantly different information than saying that IBM is still in the process of doing it today. If IBM had said this 20 years ago, then is would be inappropriate, because it's impossible to infer from the information that they were building data centres then that they still are now.

While I have said that is is perfectly correct, and this is in keeping with the facts of English usage as reflected in the speech and writing of educated native speakers, it is true that this usage has been criticized by some commentators. For more on this, see the entry on "sequence of tenses" in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage. Examples of sentences considered acceptable there are "Novak said that she is going tomorrow" and "The Lone Ranger said that crime doesn't pay." In fact, in the second example, which refers to a timeless truth, the version with is is more likely.

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