Come in/ coming in

Question

When babies are teething, they says “Your teeth are coming in”

I wonder why “in” is used, not “out”

I wonder if there is any difference in the meaning between “have(1)” and “have(2)’.

Mother: You have a tooth coming in.
Girls tend to have their teeth come in before boys.

I would like to know why “3” and “4” is used grammatically.

coming in (present continuous).
come in ( the bare infinitive).

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

smartenglish@hanmail.netWhen babies are teething, they ~~says~~ say“Your teeth are coming in”.

smartenglish@hanmail.netI wonder why “in” is used, not “out”.

It's just the way we say it. They appear in your mouth. Besides, when your teeth come out, they literally come out of your mouth. You lose them naturally, or the dentist pulls them out.

smartenglish@hanmail.netI wonder if there is any difference in the meaning between “have(1)” and “have(2)’.

There may be a minimal difference. In both cases 'have' is vaguely equivalent to 'experience', or more specifically for this sentence, 'go through a process'.

smartenglish@hanmail.netI would like to know why “3” and “4” is used grammatically.
coming in (present continuous).
come in ( the bare infinitive).

Please do not use automatically generated list numbers. They are not transferred into quote boxes accurately. (There is no 3 or 4 in your post, by the way.)

coming in : It's happening at the time we are talking about it.
come in : It happens regularly (all the time, generally for everyone).

Note how my description also needs "is happening" and "happens" in the appropriate places. Often, the -ing form is about a one-time, currently on-going occurrence, while the plain form is about multiple-time occurrences.

They are eating pizza at Johnny's Pizza Parlor tonight.
They eat at Johnny's Pizza Parlor quite often.

CJ

Come in/ coming in

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