alytical practical grammar - Toronto Public Library

APPENDIX-PRESENT INDICATIVE, ETC. '253
act, and as sucb is predicated of tbe subject. Thus." The house is built."
Here it is implied tbat the act of building is completed, and has ceased,
and tbe result, expressed by built, is predicated of the house. In all verbs
of tbis kind, the past participle, after the \'Crb to be, has reference to the
state resulting frem the act .as prcdica~ed of, or .qualifying the subject of
the verb, and not to the act Itself. Stnctly speakIDg, then, the past participle
with the verb to be is not the present tense in the pn,si I'e voice of
verbs thus used j that is, this form does not express passively the doing of
the act. These verbs either have no present passive, or it is made by annexing
the participle in iny, in its passive seme, to the verb to be; a~,
.. The house i, building."
It is supposed by some that" is built," though in the form of the present.
passive, really is a present-perfect; because it represents the act as com.
pleted, and because the perfect·definite, in Latin, is often translated by
this form into English. Due consideration, however, I think will show
that it differs quite as much frem the present·perfect as it does from the
present. To be satisfied of this, compare the following expressions: "This
garment is torn," merely asserts the present Btate of the garment, with no
referencp- to the act hnt what is implied. But when we say, "This garment
haB been torn," the reference is chiefly to thc act as having heen done,
with no reference to the Btate of the garment but what is implied. The
one asserts tbat the garment remains torn, the other does not-it may have
been mended; the latter is the regular passive of the prescut'!Jerfect active,
the former is not. Tbis will perhaps be more clearly perceil'cd by
means of another example: "This house has been painted, but the paint is
.com off." Tbis is good English. But if we say. "This house is painter!,
but the paint i~ worn off," WP. should assert a contradiction.
There is properly no passive form, in English, corresponding to the progrcssive
form in the active voice, except ,,-bere it is maue by tLe particip!e
in ing, in a passive sense; thus, "The house is building "-" The garments
are making "-" Whent is selling," &c. An attempt has been Illade by
some grammarians, of late. to banish such exprcssions from the IRnguage,
thongh they have been used in all time past by the best writer" and to
justify and defend a clumsy solecism, which. has recen.tly been introduced
chiefly through the newspaper press, but which has gained such cUl'I'ency,
and is becoming so familiar to the ear, that it seems likely to prevail, with
all its uncouthness and deformity. I refer to such expressions as "The
house is being bnilt "_u 'The letter is being written "-" The mine is being
worked ,,_u 'fhe news is being telegraphed," &c. &c.
Respecting this mode of expreesion, it mny be noticed-
1. That it had uo existence in the langnage till within the last fifty
years. This, indeed, woul? not make t~~ expression W!'o~g, were it. otherwise
un~xceptionable, but Its recent orlgm shows that It IS not, as IS pretended,
a neceB,ary form.
2. This form of expression, when analyzed, is founu not to express ~hat
it is intended to express, and would be used only by such as are either
ignorant of its import, or are careless and loose in their us~ of language.
To make this manifest, let it be considered, first, that there IS no progres­
,sive form of the verb to be, and no need of it; hence, there is DO Bu~h