NRTC English: Identifying the difference between ‘being’ and ‘been’

Oftentimes, people often use ‘being’ and ‘been’ incorrectly in sentences. In NRTC English for today, I have provided a detailed explanation between ‘being’ and ‘been’ with a number of examples.

Being /ˈbiː.ɪŋ/ as a present participle is used to

1. indicate a continuous tense in the passive form e.g the man is being interrogated in the police custody.

In this case, the following combinations are grammatical: is being, am being, was being, were being, are being. NOT is been, am been, was been, were been, are been.

It is important you pay attention to the primary auxiliary verbs, as well as the tenses in the present or past continuous forms before using being in the passive voice. Please take note that the main verb in the passive voice will always be in the past participle.

Let’s look at this example:

• She was eating Jollof rice [=active voice; the subject is the performer of the action]. In passive voice, this is going to become Jollof rice was being eaten by her. You must pay attention to the number of the subjects before using any of the primary auxiliary verbs.

In phrases such as

• He’s being rude/stupid/foolish/smart (=temporarily displaying a particular behaviour).
• The railway brought many towns into being (=existence).
• Alien beings, our being, a way of being, well-being etc.

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Being as a gerund or head of a gerundive phrase

Examples where we have being used as a gerund are:

1. Being rich has its own pains.
2. Being a student is a lot of fun but hard work.
3. I don’t like your being a nuisance.

After prepositions

• Thank you for being so helpful

Or with certain verbs

1. I don’t mind being alone.
2. A sociable person enjoys being with other people.

Please take note that a gerund or a gerundive phrase is followed by a singular verb, as exemplified in the first and second examples.

Being as a head of a participial phrase

• Being the last child of my family, I always enjoy some unrivalled privilege.

Been /biːn/ as a past participle used STRICTLY after has, have, had, and having.

To form perfect tenses and perfect continuous tenses in English

• She has being been learning to dance. [=a present perfect continuous tense]
• By November 2022, I shall have being been teaching at TBOSE Tutorial for three years. [=a future perfect continuous tense]
• The thief has just being been arrested. [=a present perfect tense]

There’s an important thing to say here: using been after has, have, had, and having, will translate to having perfective tenses in English.

A perfective tense shows completeness.

A big rule of thumb:

Where has, have, had, and having appear in a sentence, what you MUST use after them is BEEN.