The president has been shot

[Offroad]

Please teachers, could you tell me whether there's a difference between these sencentes?

1) The president has been shot.
2) The president was shot. (<-- is this sentence OK?)


could you proofread these sentences too?

1) The Department of Mathematics
2) The Mathematics Department
4) The US president
5) The president of the US

Could one say this on a different way and have the same meaning?

Thank you very much

 

[jamiep]

The President has been shot (present perfect) suggests the incident has happened very recently and the information is new.

The simple past tense would be used when the event took place longer ago or to give more detailed infortmation.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking about the other sentences but they all look ok except that I'm pretty sure President should have an upper case P.

 

[Offroad]

Thank you Jamie for this useful information.

 

[Barb_D]

Capitalize the P in president only when it comes immediately before the person's name: President Jacques Chirac.

But Jacques Chirac was the French president until 2007.

(Sorry, but the current guy's name is too hard to spell!)

[not a teacher]

 

[Offroad]

The President has been shot (present perfect) suggests the incident has happened very recently and the information is new.
The simple past tense would be used when the event took place longer ago or to give more detailed infortmation.

Could it be
a) The President was just shot
b) The President was shot minutes ago
c) The president was shot just a few minutes ago


Thanks in advance

 

[Barb_D]

All of those are fine, with president, not President.

[not a teacher]

 

[Offroad]

Thank you Barb.

So, another doubt just come up:

If 'he has been shot' means 'he was just shot', then I'd like to know how to say that he was shot many times. He's some kind of the most-wanted man in the city and the caps has shot him many times since 1942.
How'd you guys say this?

He's been shot for years?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Barb_D]

Uh... He's been shot many times over the years.

It's possible he can still be shot again.