Please answer my questions

[polygon]

Please answer my following questions. Thanks!
1. If today is Wednesday, then which one of the followings is correct?
a) Yesterday is Tuesday
b) Yesterday was Tuesday

2. Whitney Houston has died. Is it correct to say "Whitney Houston had a daughter"?
However, if I don't know that Whitney Houston has died, I may think that she is still alive but she has lost her daughter. Now she doesn't have a daughter.

 

[cereal_chick]

Yesterday was Tuesday, because yesterday is a thing in the past.

It is correct to say she had a daughter.
I think in a situation where you were discussing Whitney Houston's daughter and you didnt know she had died, you would be told at some point that she had died.

[Not a teacher]

 

[5jj]

Please give more helpful titles to your threads, polygon. 'Yesterday is/was Tuesday?' would have been good for this one.

 

[emsr2d2]

As far as the Whitney Houston question is concerned, I think your question referred to the potential ambiguity of the statement.

Whitney Houston had a daughter.

If you know that one or the other is dead, there are two extrapolations possible from that statement:

1) Whitney Houston is dead but her daughter is still alive.
2) Whitney Houston is still alive but her daughter is dead.

If you have no idea if anyone is dead, or if the statement were followed by a timescale: "Whitney Houston had a daughter in 2002", that would simply be a statement of fact and we would have no idea whether they are both alive, both dead or one is alive and one is dead.