Usage of the word being

The word being is used in several different grammatical structures.

Being + adjective

The structure being + adjective is used to talk about actions and behavior.

Why are you being so silly?
You are being cruel when you hurt others with your words or actions.

Note that when the adjective refers to feelings, the continuous form is not possible.

I was upset when I heard that I had failed the test. (NOT I was being upset when I … Here we are talking about the speaker’s feelings and hence a continuous form is not possible.)
I am delighted to hear that you have won the first prize. (NOT I am being delighted …)

Being + past participle                 

Being can be followed by a past participle. This structure is used in the passive forms of present and past continuous tenses.

Compare:

Mother is cooking dinner. (Active)

Dinner is being cooked by mother. (Passive)

They are repairing the roof.

The roof is being repaired.

I am quite sure that somebody is following me. (Active)

I am quite sure that I am being followed. (Passive)

Being in participle clauses

Instead of a because /as / since clause, we sometimes use an adverbial participle clause with being. This structure is mainly used in a formal or literary style.

Compare:

Being late, he couldn’t watch the show. (= Because he is late, he couldn’t watch the show.)

Being a friend of the Minister, I am often invited to official parties. (= As I am a friend of the Minister, I am often invited to official parties.)

Being quite slim, I managed to squeeze through the small opening in the wall. (= Since I was quite slim, I managed to squeeze through the small opening in the wall.)

Is being a helping verb or a main verb? In this post, we will learn different uses of being in the English language.

In English, the verb being is used as both a helping and an action verb in different situation. Let’s understand how and when to use being in English.

Use of BEING in English

1. As a main verb
2. As a helping verb
3. As a noun (gerund)
4. As a present participle in participle phrases
5. BEING as a noun

As a main verb, BEING is the present participle (V3) of the verb BE. As a main verb, being refers to a continuous state of being that someone deliberately is in. It is used as a main verb in the Present continuous tense and the Past Continuous tense.

When being is used as a main verb (stative), it is followed by the helping verb BE (is, am, are, was, were).

Structure: Subject + is/am/are/was/were + being + adjective/noun

Examples of BEING as a main verb:

• You are being funny.
• She is being silly right now.
• Why are you being my father?
• Jon is being a great team member to us.
• She was being crazy in the party last night.
• I am just being sarcastic. Excuse me!
• They were being really rude to me yesterday.
• Jyoti is not being sincere towards her job.
• You are not being you.

In all the above sentences, being is working as a stative verb. It is not showing any dynamic action. It is just showing a state of being that someone is or was in deliberately. Try replacing it with the verb ‘behaving.’ You will understand what it’s doing.

Note: Do not use feelings or emotions after BEING.

• I am being happy. ❌
• I am happy. ✔️

• He is being sad/emotional. ❌
• He is sad/emotional. ✔️

You don’t deliberately get into a state of a feeling/ emotion. You can’t just turn it on and off; a feeling or emotion is a consequence.

2. Use of being as a main verb

We use being as a helping verb in the Present Continuous tense and the Past Continuous tense in passive voice.

Structures:

Examples of being as a helping verb:

• We are writing a book about human mind. (active, present continuous)
• A book on human mind is being written (by us). (passive, present continuous)

• The cops were beating some kids brutally. (active, past continuous)
• Some kids were being beaten. (passive, past continuous)

• She is being offered a job.
• I am being ridiculed.
• My friends are being beaten up.
• The next video is being recorded right now.
• Your efforts are being appreciated.
• His father is being checked up right now.
• The food is being prepared right now.
• The movie was being made that time.
• That book was being written last month.
• The actors were being tested for their roles.
• Our annual performance was being evaluated in the meeting last night.

3. Use of being as a noun (gerund)

Being is also used as a gerund (a noun) in a gerund phrase. Let’s take some examples of being as a noun (gerund).

Examples:

• Being a politician in this country is tough.
  (Gerund phrase = Being a politician in this country, acting as the subject)
• Being angry does not help in taking rational decisions.
  (Gerund phrase = Being angry, acting as the subject)
• Being a teacher allows you to change lives.
  (Gerund phrase = Being a teacher, acting as the subject)
• I hate being his friend.
  (Gerund phrase = Being his friend, acting as the object of the verb)
• The benefit of being my friend is that nobody messes up with you.
  (Gerund phrase = Being my friend, acting as the object of the preposition OF)

4. Use of being as a present participle in participle phrases

Being is also used in the beginning of a participle phrase. Let’s take some examples of being as a present participle.

A participle phrase works either as an adjective or an adverb in a sentence.

Examples:

• Being scared to death, I don’t play with dogs.
• Rahul, being a father of two kids, does not flirt with girls.
• Being the owner of the company, you have to deal with all the complaints.
• Being a cop, he has to be strong.

5. BEING as a noun

Being means “a life” or “existence” and can be used as a word.

• Every being deserves to live.
• The movement of releasing stray dogs was brought into being last year.
• Many believed that Shiva is a mythical being.

Related YouTube lessons:

• Main verbs and helping verbs
• Noun in English
• Gerund in English
• Gerund phrases in English
• Participle phrases in English
• Present Continuous tense
• Past Continuous tense
• Use of passive voice in English

  Being as a Present Participle

Being is the present participle (-ing) form of the verb to be, used with the verb to be to form the continuous tenses:

• [Subject] + [to be] + being + [Complement].

Usually, continuous tenses demonstrate a process in progress (i.e. incomplete at the time discussed) or a temporarily repeated activity. With the verb to be, however, we usually refer to states, conditions and feelings in the simple form when we would use continuous for other tenses. This makes the continuous use of to be usually limited to specifically emphasising a temporary condition – often one that is unusual or surprising.

• He was being very helpful on Sunday, for some reason.
• She is being strangely quiet this morning.

This use is more unusual in the future, where the future simple can already emphasise a state, and we’re less to likely to discuss surprising/unexpected information.

Being in the Passive Voice

Being can be used in the the passive continuous forms to show a process in progress (as above, an incomplete or repeated activity). For the passive voice, this is combined with the past participle:

• [Subject] + [to be] + being + [Past participle]

This structure is used to emphasise the doing of the process, rather than the subject (the actor), either because the result is more important than the cause or because the actor is unknown.

• The cliff was being eroded (by the sea).
• Our phone signal is being blocked by something.

Being as a Gerund

The gerund being is a word form that uses the -ing form as a noun. It is used to describe the substance of being, which could be used as a subject or object, with a few different meanings:

• A life-form, e.g. He claimed to have seen a being from space.

This use is common when it is ambiguous or unimportant to specify exactly what the life-form is, so we can refer to uncategorised or new living things as ‘beings’. We can also group wider lifeforms as beings without subgroups, such as living being (or the way we generally refer to human beings).

• To refer to someone in terms of their life essence/wholeness, e.g. She loved art and believed it made up her whole being.

This use is a little like existence, but generally relates it particularly to an individual. You might see it referring to other nouns like animals and objects, but typically a thing’s being has some connection to sense of purpose/life meaning, so it’s often useful for discussing people and their nature.

• To refer to a state of existence, e.g. The idea came into being after hours of brainstorming.

This use would usually be found in rather formal settings, discussing something coming into being in a somewhat academic sense.

Being as an Adverb

Being can be used as a conjunction or as part of an adverbial phrase. Here, it roughly means because or since, and is often connected to a subordinate clause with that, as or as how:

• Wendy missed the train, being that she was late.

It can also be used for the same meaning without a complete clause, to give an adverbial complement:

• Wendy missed the train, being late.

(Or with the subject/verb to follow as an afterthought: Wendy missed the train, being late as she was.)

Being as part of a Noun Phrase

Being can also be used in combination with a complement to form a noun phrase from a state or condition, in order, for example, to refer to it in terms of cause and effect.

• His being tall was the main reason they hired him.

This use will often be applied in similar situations to the adverbial use; the above example could also be said as Because he was tall, they hired him. Or Being tall, he got the job. (In its most standard structure: They hired him because he was tall.)

I hope these explanations and examples give some insight into how we use being in different ways – a lot of these ideas translate to different verbs in the present participle form.

The word «being» is serving as what’s called a present participle in these examples. It is helping to create a form of the verb called the present continuous tense.

You are probably familiar with a variety of tenses, but just in case you don’t remember their names, here are some refresher examples, for the verb «feed». I chose an ordinary transitive verb (one which takes an object, i.e. one in which someone does the verb to something) to show the effect of different tenses more clearly:

Tense Example

Past

(Simple) Perfect    I fed the baby
Pluperfect          I had fed the baby
Imperfect           I was _feeding_ the baby

Present

(Simple) Present    I feed the baby
Present Continuous  I am _feeding_ the baby

Future

Future              I will feed the baby
Future Perfect      I will have fed the baby

Note that 2 of these, the Imperfect and the Present Continuous, use the present participle form of the verb itself, «feeding».

Now, suppose that you are the baby. Instead of the active form of the verb, «to feed», we can switch to the passive form, «to be fed». Then, the sentences from earlier in these two tenses change to:

Imperfect           I was _being_ fed
Present Continuous  I am _being_ fed

So, the word «being» shows up most commonly in these two tenses, in the passive form of the verb.

Note: The verb «to be» is an additional, unique case where the word «being» can appear to form these same tenses, but the verb is intransitive. For example:

Imperfect           I was _being_ careful
Present Continuous  I am _being_ careful

Modern American English relies heavily on present continuous tense verb forms instead of the more mundane present tense. In fact, the simple present tense is only regularly used in one way — to reflect an ongoing, regular activity. A few examples:

«How do you get to work?» «I ride the bus.»
«What kind of work do you do?» «I feed animals at the zoo.»

The normal and more common form of the present tense in AmE is the present continuous:

«I’m watching my weight».
«He’s being asked to sign the papers.»
«She’s getting really upset.»

BritE does the same thing, but the simple present shows up a bit more, just as a variation in usage.

Note: There is one rather uncommon usage of the word «being». It sometimes appears to start an adjectival phrase, which is a phrase that describes something. For example:

«The ship’s captain, being taller than the rest of the crew, was able to reach the swinging cask.»

There is another occasional, but incorrect, usage where the word «being» is used as part of a kind of additional dangling phrase that’s trying to do the job of a conjunction:

«I ate the rest of the cake, the reason being that I was depressed.»

These are really two separate ideas, and could be correctly framed by inserting the conjunction «because» and dropping the awkward phrase «the reason being that»:

«I ate the rest of the cake because I was depressed.»

A subreddit for questions and discussions about grammar, language, style, conventions[,] and punctuation.

Members

Online