A watch not worth a penny was being sold there.
In this sentence, do I have to, must and should put "that is" like this?
A watch that is not worth a penny was being sold there.
Please help!
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2No, you neither must, nor have to, put "that is" in your sentence. The part "not worth a penny" is an adjectival phrase defining "watch" and doing it quite nicely without any superfluous constructs. – Victor Bazarov Aug 23 '15 at 22:17
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1BTW, since the action is in the past "was being", the construct you were asking about ought to be "that was", not "that is". – Victor Bazarov Aug 23 '15 at 22:18
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1@VictorBazarov I agree with you qualifiedly. You could be referring to a watch that is not worth a penny now that was being sold there. It's a bit unlikely though. – BobRodes Aug 24 '15 at 2:31
No, you don't have to include "that is". However, if you do want to, it should say ...that was... so that it agrees with the rest of the sentence.
You would use "is" if the sentence were in the present tense, i.e. ...is being sold there.
