Hi Gurkirat, no this isn’t passive, it is stative “I am afraid …” describing your state, with being slapped being a complement to describe what you are scared of. In the same way you could say “I am hungry”, or with additional information, “I am hungry for pizza.” As you are describing a state (fear) it doesn’t really come into active/passive for the actual action; the passive would be “I was slapped.”

I’m not sure I follow – as “being” would not be used in the present simple, but present continuous (in the passive, e.g. “I am being assessed.”)?

Pl tell me use of word in passive of present simple with example and rule

Hi Marce,

This is the noun phrase use, it’s used as part of the phrase to connect a state/condition (in this case age) with the main subject (“users”). It is a good option here essentially to flow better, instead of creating another clause – the alternative would be something like “with users of whom two-thirds are of school-going age” or “and two-thirds of those users are of school-going age”, both of which are not as smooth to say.

In this case, though, we could actually remove the “being”, as the meaning would be quite easily understood without it.

Phil

It is a virtual playground for nearly 200 million monthly users, with two-thirds of those users being of school-going age.

Hi Inna, in general no (it would be possible, but it would mean the bathroom is actively doing the dirtiness!) – this is because being is used as a present participle there, to form the continuous tense, but when dealing with state verbs like be, we tend to use the simple tense to describe current states. There are a few different articles covering the distinction on this site, but I think this is the main one to look at: https://englishlessonsbrighton.co.uk/present-tenses-state-verbs/

Hi Ameli,

This is the noun phrase form from the end of the article; it works like an adverb to establish a condition/state as part of the noun phrase, to say “this being the date of X” to roughly mean “which is the date of X” or “as this was the date of X” (similar to the above example “his being tall” = “as he was tall”).

I hope that clears it up.

Phil

I find this in “Advanced Language Practice” book. I copy the right answer as below:

If local folklore is to be believed, he does this without fail at midnight on 6 September every year, this being the date of the untimely death of one George Carpenter, the gardener of the hall, who met his doom in the library, had burned by his own lantern.

I fail to understand what is meant by “this being the date…”. What “being” here functions as? Is there this kind of grammar? Please advise and thank you in advance