tenses - Today Was vs Today Is - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
word choice - 'Today afternoon' vs 'Today in the afternoon'? - English ...
In my town, people with PhD's in education use the terms, "on today" and "on tomorrow." I have never heard this usage before. Every time I hear them say it, I wonder if it is correct to use the wor...
In old books, people often use the spelling "to-day" instead of "today". When did the change happen? Also, when people wrote "to-day", did they feel, when pronouncing the word, that it contained two
Change from to-day to today - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
Why is "our today's meeting" wrong? - English Language & Usage Stack ...
Today means "the current day", so if you're asking what day of the week it is, it can only be in present tense, since it's still that day for the whole 24 hours. In other contexts, it's okay to say, for example, "Today has been a nice day" nearer the end of the day, when the events that made it a nice day are finished (or at least, nearly so).
Today had been the worst day of my life. seems awkward, as today is not understood to mean on this day (the original meaning). In narrative, an event that is happened in the past is narrated as it is the present, as in: It is the 1st of April, 2006. Today will be the worst day of my life. Outside that specific context, I would write
Neither are clauses, but "today in the afternoon" is grammatical (adverbial phrase of time), while "today afternoon" is not. I would also suggest "this afternoon" as a more succinct and idiomatic alternative to "today in the afternoon".