Wednesday, August 19, 2009

When do we use "being" and "been"?

"Being" is present tense. "Been" is the past participle of "be".
*He is being given an award.
*The award has been given for many years."

*Are you being served?
*I have been served.

You are "being" very annoying by posting this question under the wrong category. What kind of human "being" would do such a thing? However, I digress. Are you being served?

Being is the Present Continuous of the form to be. This is used for actions occuring right now that are still going on as in:
Why are you being so silly?
He's being a total idiot.
Been is the past participle of to be, used in the Present Perfect tense, which describes actions in the past that continue into the present:
I've been living in Africa for the past 17 years.
That child has been crying all morning!
In both the above examples the action started some time back and is still going on.

No comments:

Post a Comment