Talk:Been - being - bean

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Here's the very very long version of this article from quarry, which is older: IT HAS BEEN FIDGETTED WITH FOLLOWING ANNOYING SPAM, AND DOESN'T LOOK AS IT ONCE DID...


== $$ been or being (or bean)? ==

- The two participles of the verb 'to be' are sometimes confused by writers in UK schools - and sometimes by undergraduates too. They would not be confused so often if the writers pronounced them more carefully. been is always pronounced as one syllable. being should be pronounced as two - 'BEE-ing' /"bi:IN/- but in loose speech (and in some accents) is often rendered as one, so that it sounds the same as been.

- Pronunciation may serve as a rule of thumb. You will be right more often than not if you say the word carefully and write it accordingly. But you will not always be right, particularly if your own pronunciation is not precise. We can also look at the problem more grammatically. (It may help you to read the article on participles.)

- A helpful hint, if not at all the whole grammatical truth, is to use been after the auxiliary 'to have' (e.g. it has been said''', and being after the auxiliary 'to be' (e.g. you are being watched).

- A further confusion can exist - perhaps rarely among post-school age writers - is between been and bean. This can be illustrated by a reference to literature. Roald Dahl, in his children's story The BFG (1982) shows the poor education of the Big Friendly Giant by describing the favourite food of (the other) giants by calling them human beans (p.25 and passim). When Sophie, the child heroine of the story, points out that the bean is a vegetable, the Giant replies Not the human bean ... The human bean has two legs and a vegetable has no legs at all. (p. 28)

- The Giant should of course have referred to our species as human beings. As a noun, the spelling is always being - unless you are talking about vegetables.

- === subheading ===

- To turn to the more complex level of grammatical explanation: one form of confusion arises, I think, because of the varied uses of 'to be'. The difficulty is greatest in its two different uses as an auxiliary verb. (For its use as a main verb, see be.) ==

- When 'to be' is used with the '-ing' participle (the active), it shows a continuous (also called progressive) aspect of a tense. He sings is an example of the stative present tense. It means more or less 'he is a singer', or 'he is the sort of person who sings'. He is singing by contrast is a progressive (continuous) present. The meaning is that 'at this moment, the person is engaged in a[n unfinished] song'. Such continuous uses of 'to be' are followed by the -ing (the active) participle. This is true in both the present tense (He is singing - i.e. now) and the past (He was singing - i.e. at the time of which we are talking).

- to be can also be used as a passive auxiliary. (The passive voice is the inversion, or 'opposite', of the active voice. We usually use verbs in their active form - She drives a sports car. This can also be expressed in the passive form as The sports car is driven by a woman. Note that the auxiliary here is is - the present tense of 'to be'.)

- The passive, then, shows something being' done. It is being done is the present continuous passive: the present participle being is followed by the -ed participle of the main verb in the phrase - it [is] being done. The 'is'' shows that the verb is in the present tense. Other passives are the simple past passive: it was being done and the perfect forms it has been done (the present perfect and it had been done (the past perfect).

- Here is one very clear cause of confusion. In the present passive it is being done, the passive is shown by the '-ed' participle of the main verb, 'to do' - i.e. done. (The '-ing' participle, being, shows the continuous present tense.) In the present perfect, it has been done has the '-ed' participle been to show the perfect. - - A further complication is confusion of tense. When the pub advertised its television programmes to sports fans as Ascot Racing Been Shown Here, it gave the wrong message - what it actually said, when read precisely, was that the screening of the Ascot meeting was over - it had been shown. The pub had used the past participle, when what it should have used was the present participle being, which would have communicated that 'today, or screen is [or will be] showing the races'. - - (You may notice that this is the form of the verb that is sometimes called a 'passive participle'.) If you want to use the passive in academic English, the use of the verb 'to be' is more or less obligatory. (In colloquial English, the verb 'to get' is often substituted. This verb is frowned on in academic English; avoid it.) - - Here things may become more complicated. If you are a native speaker of English, there is enough in what has been said already to put you on the right lines, as long as you: - - are conscious of whether you are trying to express a progressive or a passive meaning; and - - b) 'think posh', or be conscious that you are writing formally. - - If you follow this advice, you will make few (or at any rate fewer) mistakes. - - If you are not a native speaker of English, it may be harder. Return to your ESL, ERL or ESOL textbooks (or good books about learning English written in your own language) and revise the teaching on the verb. Then read more native English writing. What we are talking about here (the English verb, particularly the participles of 'to be') is as much a matter of idiom as it is of rules to be learnt. These are best learnt by immersion in a natural language community, or face-to-face teaching. - - In the simple present passive, use the simple present of 'to be' with the passive (-ed) participle - e.g. I am annoyed by .,..: it is guarded by dogs; you are surprised at the insult and so on. Such a verb describes a condition that is continuing, and that is [continuously] being done to the [grammatical] Subject of the sentence. - - The past simple passive, with the simple past of 'to be' + -ed, implies that the action is over: he was annoyed by ... [but he is no longer annoyed by it]; it was guarded by dogs [but now we may able to rob it without being detected]; you were surprised by the insult [but the incident is now over]. - - One sort of confusion that exists comes when we combine these two auxiliary uses of 'to be'. - - The continuous present passive has the simple present of 'to be', the -ing participle being to show that it is continuous, and the passive (-ed) participle of the main verb to show that it is passive. I am being fired by my boss; she is being married today; her fiancε is being hunted by the police; and they are being awarded a prize are examples. The same of course is true for the past continuous passive, with the present forms of 'to be' replaced by the past equivalents: I was being fired by my boss; she was being married today; her fiancε was being hunted by the police and they were being awarded a prize. + - + - The examples in the previous paragraph are all in some ways indicative of a continuing state of affairs. (In the case of the bride, the continuous aspect can be one way of expressing the future in English: a friend might say to another friend that the wedding is [later on] today by saying, at breakfast, she is being married today.) + - + - If we want to express an action or state that was one event in the past and is now over, e.g. she was married yesterday [the action is now over, and everyone recognizes her as a wife], we use the simple past of 'to be' with the passive (-ed) participle of the main verb: she was married; we were congratulated by the Vice-Chancellor; and the war was fought from 1939 to 1945. (Note in this last example: (a) that fought is the [irregular] -ed participle of 'to fight', although it does not end in the letters 'ed'; and b) that when we think on a large scale, we often think of a war, or similar phenomenon, as a single event, even if took several years and involved millions of individual things happening. On a different scale, of course, our use of aspect may change.) + - + - been is the passive, or the past, participle - in modern terms, the '-ed' participle - of 'to be'. That is, you should use it after the auxiliary 'have' - e.g. I have been to see my Supervisor today. Do not use it as an absolute participle + - + - being is the present, or active, participle - the '-ing' form. Use it after the auxiliary 'to be', e.g. I am being pressed by my Tutor. This participle can be used absolutely: Being of sound mind and body ... (a conventional opening of a Will in English law). + - + - When it is an auxiliary indicating the continuous present, it should be followed by the active, or '-ing', participle - in this case, being. + - + - When 'to be' is an auxiliary indicating the passive, its normal form is the passive, or '-ed' participle - been. Here a difficulty comes when you want to write a continuous passive, e.g. I am being hassled by my supervisor. Here, the passive sense - that you are suffering -is conveyed in the passive participle of hassled. The being serves to show that it is continuous - that the hassle is on-going. + - + - When you use a past passive continuous, you need both - I have been being hassled by the same supervisor for over a year now.