Why do we say “Mary is BEING rude” instead of “Mary IS rude”?
Is it some kind of mistake?
Of course, it’s not. Let’s find out, why we can use BE in a continuous form.
TO BE + BEING + adjective
We use BEING + adjective to talk about people’s actions and behaviour.
Tom is being rude.
Usually, when you use this structure, you mean that the person normally doesn’t behave like that.
MIND IT!
1. Don’t use this structure to talk about feelings: “I’m sad” (not I’m being sad).
2. We are not talking about such sentences now:
I don’t like being sad (feeling).
She hates being at home (place).
In these cases, we use VERB+BEING+ADJECTIVE because after some verbs we need an ING-form.
Have a look at these examples from animation movies.
QUIZ
Choose the correct option.