s question, or tell how to
better it![268]

OBS. 7.--D. H. Sanborn, an other recent writer, has very emphatically
censured this innovation, as follows: "English and American writers have of
late introduced a new kind of phraseology, which has become quite prevalent
in the periodical and popular publications of the day. Their intention,
doubtless, is, to supersede the use of the verb in the _definite form_,
when it has a passive signification. They say, 'The ship is _being_
built,'--'time is _being wasted_,"--'the work is _being advanced_,' instead
of, 'the ship is _building_, time is _wasting_, the work is _advancing_.'
Such a phraseology is a solecism too palpable to receive any favor; it is
at war with the practice of the most distinguished writers in the English
language, such as Dr. Johnson and Addison. "When an individual says, 'a
house is being burned,' he declares that a house is _existing, burned_,
which is impossible; for _being_ means existing, and _burned, consumed by
fire_. The house ceases to exist as such, after it is consumed by fire. But
when he says, 'a house _is burning_,' we understand that it is _consuming
by fire_; instead of inaccuracy, doubt, and ambiguity, we have a form of
expression perfectly intelligible, beautiful, definite, and
appropriate."--_Sanborn's Analytical Gram._, p. 102.

OBS. 8.--Dr. Perley speaks of this usage thus: "An attempt has been made of
late to introduce a kind of passive participial voice; as, 'The temple is
being built.' This ought not to be encouraged. For, besides being an
innovation, it is less convenient than the use of the present participle in
the passive sense. _Being built_ signifies action _finished_; and how can,
_Is being built_, signify an _action unfinished?"--Perley's Gram._, p. 37.

OBS. 9.--The question now before us has drawn forth, on either side, a deal
of ill scholarship and false logic, of which it would be tedious to give
even a synopsis. Concerning the import of some of our most common words and
phrases, these ingenious masters,--Bullions, Sanborn, and
Perley,--severally assert some things which seem not to be exactly true. It
is remarkable that critics can err in expounding terms so central to the
language, and so familiar to all ears, as "_be, being, being built, burned,
being burned, is, is burned, to be burned_," and the like. _That to be_ and
_to exist_, or their like derivatives, such as _being_ and _existing, is_
and _exists_, cannot always