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Perfect Stranger Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

Grammar question no. 61: I was worried about...

Dear All,

I have a question regarding the following sentence:

I was worried about going to school.


Is worried a verb or an adjective and why?

Thank you
  

Top answer

Perfect Stranger Is worried a verb or an adjective and why? Hi, I'm just going to tell what I feel. I feel that 'worried' in "I was worried about going to school" is an adjective, because I don't sense any action in that sentence.

— Laborious

  • Perfect Stranger Is worried a verb or an adjective and why?
  • Hi, I'm just going to tell what I feel.
  • I feel that 'worried' in "I was worried about going to school" is an adjective, because I don't sense any action in that sentence.
  • " just describes a 'state' in which the speaker finds himself / herself.
  • " Right?
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5 Answers
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Perfect StrangerIs worried a verb or an adjective and why?
Hi, I'm just going to tell what I feel. ...
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Perfect StrangerI was worried about going to school.
You can argue both ways:

This is clearly a verb:
He worried about going to college. How would he afford it? Then he won the lottery, and he no longer worries about money.

This is clearly an adjective:
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.
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Ma'am, do you want to say that 'worried' in I was worried about going to school could be taken both as an adjective and a verb?
I'm afraid I don't understand how 'worried' in that sentence could be taken either way, since there is no agent / doer implied or understood in that sentence. The sentence is just describing the speaker's state at some
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When a past participle follows BE, it is rarely 100% clear whether we should label the past participle plus BE as the passive voice of a verb or the past participle as an adjective.

Don't forget tht we are talking about labels here; there is no absolutely correct answer to your question. My personal feeling is that 'worried' is functioning as an adjective here.
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LaboriousI'm afraid I don't understand how 'worried' in that sentence could be taken either way, since there is no agent / doer implied or understood in that sentence.
But there is.
(The thought / prospect of) Going to school worried him.

If you held a gun to my head, I would side with the adjective, especially since you can add a gradable adver
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