Re: Sumerian Lexicon

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Stephen Mulraney <ataltanie@O...>
wrote:

>They all make me a bit wary, crazed loonies with such identifiable
>plumage having been(**) publishing websites for as long as I've been
>online.

>(**) I swear, mostly literate reader of books and writer of standard
>English though I be, I no longer trust myself on whether to
>use "been" or "being" in this construction. I make no distinction in
>speech, to the point of not being (aha!) able to tell even what the
>underlying form is. My guess why this particular construction is so
>fragile is that it's essentially a written form, that I'd rarely
>have used in speech before my adolescent years. It's possible I
>haven't forgotten the rule, but that I've never known it, too :).
This construction is not at all unusual in spoken English IMO.  The
correct phrasing should be "loonies...have been publishing
websites..."  It is simply a present perfect progressive form of the
verb.

I've been using it all my life.
I've been noticing that you are....
He's been coming up with some....
They've been riding on the train all day.

These are all examples of the use of this "tense/aspect" in English.

Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur

Reply