Meaning – When to Use ‘Is to Discuss’, ‘Is Discussing’, ‘Discusses’

meaningword-usage

In my another post (Using "far away" and "far from" when talking about the position of adverb) I said

Provided that post is to discuss the position of the adverb "carefully", similar to the guy A in previous example, is it grammatical and idiomatic to say in the following way?

where I use infinitive form of discuss.

Actually, I am not sure if I use the right form. Consider other 2 possibilities

that post is discussing …

that post discusses …

In this situation, which one should I use?

Is there some kind of rules for this?

Best Answer

All three of those options could be used in that situation:

that post is discussing ...
that post discusses ...

Both of these are pretty neutral present-tense statements. Since for the verb "discuss" there isn't a lot of meaningful difference between the simple and continuative tenses, they basically mean the same thing.

that post is to discuss ...

Using "to be" + infinitive here could mean one of two things:

  1. You are saying that the post is or was intended to discuss something. (a present tense indicating intention)
  2. You are saying that the post is expected to discuss something in the future. (an implicit future tense)

Since in the context you used it, the post was already made, the future meaning is unlikely, so most would interpret it to mean that you're talking about the intended purpose of the post (which seems like it makes sense in your context, so if that's what you intended, you're good).

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