Usage of "It just so happens"

[ef_ma...@yahoo.com]

Does the phrase "it just so happens" ever change tense? Must it? Must
its tense agree with the complement (I hope this is the right word).

Examples:
"It just so happens that you are wrong."
"It just so happens that you have been wrong."
"It just so happens that you were wrong." / "It just so happened that
you were wrong."
"It just so happens that you had been wrong." / "It just so happened
that you had been wrong."

And to throw in some progressives:
"It just so happens that you are being an idiot."
"It just so happens that you were being an idiot." / "It just so
happened that you were being an idiot."
"It just so happens that you have been being an idiot." / "It just so
happened that you have been being an idiot."
"It just so happens that you had been being an idiot." / "It just so
happened that you have been being an idiot."

Can anyone give any rules to govern usage? It seems to me that either
"happens" or "happened" or I suppose even "It had just so happened" or
any other tense at all could be used with the same meaning. The only
difference would be in how the speaker chose to position his
recognition of the happening to both the current time, and to the
happening, altering the performative nature of the statement. For
example:

"It just so happens that you were wrong" would mean "It is true (at
this this telling) that you were wrong (and I don't think that it is
necessary to elaborated as to why)."

whereas

"It just so happened that you were wrong" would mean "It was true
(before this telling) that you were wrong (and at that time the cause
was either obscure or it was not then acknowledged)."

I know I've muddle this question somewhat, but maybe someone with some
training in these matters can glean what I'm getting at and bail me out.

[Katrin Voigt]

If you check the BNC (http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/lookup.html) for both
phrases, you find 18 occurrences of 'it just so happens' and 9 of 'it
just so happened' which isn't a lot considering the 1 million words in
the BNC...

A tool called WebPhraseCount (using sites registered in the Google
database) returned the following results:

it just so happens it just so happened
.gov
60,700,000
absolute: 504 181
relative: 0.001 % 0 %
intrasite share: 73.6 % 26.4 %

.uk
29,500,000
absolute: 2,100 993
relative: 0.007 % 0.003 %
intrasite share: 67.9 % 32.1 %

.ca
8,720,000
absolute: 1,130 621
relative: 0.013 % 0.007 %
intrasite share: 64.5 % 35.5 %

.au
5,950,000
absolute: 991 412
relative: 0.017 % 0.007 %
intrasite share: 70.6 % 29.4 %

I searched the two phrases (top) in the four domains .gov (US), .uk
(UK), .ca (Canada) and .au (Australia) (the domains are in the first
column with the number of wesites searched). We see relatievely low
total occurrences but 'happens' occurrs more frequently than 'happened'
(64.5-73.6% compared to 26.4-35.5%).

That's only corpus-based evidence for the use of both phrases and might
not answer your question regarding the meaning.

KaT

[John O'Flaherty]

You could say 'It just so happened that you were wrong' in the present,
because the being wrong happened in the past. However, it would be
unusual for someone to be that careful. It would usually be used in
present tense if being said in the present. On the other hand, if
someone were writing their memoirs, relating past events, they would
probably say "It just so happened that he was wrong."
--
john

[Mark Brader]

John O'Flaherty:

> You could say 'It just so happened that you were wrong' in the present,
> because the being wrong happened in the past. However, it would be

> unusual for someone to be that careful. ...

I don't think so much it's a matter of being careful, as that it depends
on the time when the truth of the relevant fact *is being thought about*.

"Cable cars were invented for San Francisco's hills, right?
I bet they were never used anywhere else."

"You might think so, but it just so happens that the largest
cable car system was in Chicago."

It is a fact now that the largest system was in Chicago then, but
that's irrelevant: the important thing is that you're thinking about
it now, so "happens" is in the present tense. And this, of course,
is the more common case. On the other hand:

"But in those days it just so happened that there was an Air
Canada office in the Yonge-Eglinton Centre, so I went here."

It is a fact now that the ticket office was there then, but again
that's irrelevant: the important thing is, we're talking about
what I was thinking about then, when I decided to go to the YEC.
So "happened" is in the past tense.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto, m...@vex.net
"Have you ever heard [my honesty] questioned?"
"I never even heard it mentioned." -- Every Day's a Holiday

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[ef_ma...@yahoo.com]

Mark Brader wrote:

> It is a fact now that the ticket office was there then, but again
> that's irrelevant: the important thing is, we're talking about
> what I was thinking about then, when I decided to go to the YEC.
> So "happened" is in the past tense.

Thanks Mark. This is my thoughts on the matter, and it's nice to see
them seconded. If anyone has any reasons why this should *not* be the
case, I would enjoy hearing that as well.

At any rate, would you (or anyone else for that matter) know of some
reference material that would deal with a topic like this? I really
don't have a clue where to start, it's a bit beyond Strunk's _Manual of
Style_.