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  1. The rumor that she has something to do with the crime turned out true.
  2. The rumor that she had something to do with the crime turned out true.

Which is correct? If both are correct, is there any difference in meanings?

Thanks for your help in advance.

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    "Had to do with the crime" is not natural English. You can she had nothing to do with the crime, but you can't invert the idiom "had nothing to do with X" by removing "nothing". You can change it to "had something to do with X" but it has to make sense for the context.
    – Andrew
    May 1, 2018 at 23:41
  • Does the following sentence sound natural? "The rumor that she has something to do with the crime turned out true." Do I say 'she has' or 'she had'?
    – user74712
    May 1, 2018 at 23:50
  • Could you edit your question to add that to your examples? Then I will be happy to answer.
    – Andrew
    May 1, 2018 at 23:57
  • [correction: turned out to be true]. I assume the crime has already been committed. So: had.
    – Lambie
    Jul 12, 2021 at 22:53
  • The first sentence is not possible because the rumour is about the present ("has"), but in the past, it "turned out to be true", so it's no longer a rumour now. The second sentence is correct
    – gotube ♦
    Jul 13, 2021 at 2:32

2 Answers 2

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In the first sentence, you are using the present simple for the first and the second clause. It means that the two actions happen in the present. If it helps you, imagine those two actions happening in the same moment.

Although I don't know the context, it's more likely that the person involved with the crime did something before the rumour turns out to be true. So the first clause should be related more to the past than the present. This is why I would use had.

Sam has already pointed out that the end of the sentence would sound better with turned out to be true.

So the outcome is:

The rumor that she had something to do with the crime turned out to be true.

Last thing, rumor is AmE, while rumour is BrE. Choose the one you prefer.

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"the crime turned out" is past tense. So, when did everything happen? In the past.

Other verbs need to agree with that.
"she had something" is also past tense. OK.
"she has something" is present tense. Doesn't match.

Therefore sentence 2 is the correct answer, although I would add "to be":
"The rumor that she had something to do with the crime turned out to be true."

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  • turned out to be true.
    – Lambie
    Nov 10, 2021 at 21:38

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