Ing clauses

Question

hii'm doing my GCSE's and today i got this question.........................,he started to work even harder1-being promoted2-having promotedwhich one is correct??

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

'Promote' is a passive verb here.

Welcome to English Forums, ESL girl!

Anonymous · Answer

thanks
ok promote is passive but which one is right?

Eugene Leo · Answer

ESL girlhii'm doing my GCSE's and today i got this question..,he started to work even harder1-being promoted2-having promoted which one is correct??

I guess, "having promoted" makes more sense than "being promoted" in your case.

Mister Micawber · Answer

No, Eugene.  'Having promoted' is not passive.

Dave Phillips · Answer

Anonymousthanks ok promote is passive but which one is right?

Having promoted - the subject promoted therefore this is active

Being promoted - the promotion happened to the subject therfore it is passive. Hence the answer is being promoted he worked even harder.

If the subject does something it is active if something happens to it then it is passive.

Eugene Leo · Answer

Mister MicawberNo, Eugene. 'Having promoted' is not passive.

Oh, really, sorry, I seem not to have taken a look at it carefully.

What I actually meant was "having been promoted" but since there's no such an option, the OP should use "being promoted". But I would point out that "having been promoted" is still better than "being promoted".

BillJ · Answer

ESL girlhi
i'm doing my GCSE's and today i got this question
..,he started to work even harder
1-being promoted
2-having promoted
which one is correct??

Hi

The first one, 'being promoted.....' is correct. The reason lies in the verb 'promoted', and something called 'voice'. 'Promote' is what's known as a transitive verb which means that when it's used in an active voice clause such as your second example, it needs a direct object to complete its meaning, e.g. 'Having promoted him, he started to work even harder' ('him' is the direct object). But your second example has no direct object which is why it's ungrammatical.

However, when the clause is in the passive voice, like your first one is, the verb needs no direct object and that's why it's the correct one to use.

BillJ

Mister Micawber · Answer

Thanks for the refresher course, Bill, but 'having promoted him' still wouldn't work-- we're left with a dangling participle.

BillJ · Answer

Mister MicawberThanks for the refresher course, Bill, but 'having promoted him' still wouldn't work-- we're left with a dangling participle.

Thanks for that MM. To avoid confusing ESL girl, I was trying to stick as closely as possible to the words of her GCSE question, but just posit a direct object in the 'gap', to make the point about 'promote' being a transitive verb. Of course the result is horribly ambiguous (as many subjectless non-finites are), but it was a case of the 'lesser of two evils': change the wording of her GCSE question (inappropriate in my opinion) simply in order to use an unambiguous adjunct clause (which would risk blurring the crucial point), or use an ambiguous clause (as I did) which retains the focus on the transitivity point, and risk getting pulled up.

An unambiguous example would have to be something like: 'Having promoted John to sales manager, the managing director felt sure that sales would improve'. Here, I don't think anyone could fail to interpret the NP 'managing director' as the only plausible subject of the non-finite clause, simply because there is no other candidate.

BillJ

Anonymous · Answer

thank you SO much for your help but i did it having

the reason i did that was i thought promotion is something u get it's not a state of being

i mean u can't say "i am promoted" it's probably better to say "i had a promotion"

but it's my mistake i didn't think about the direct object

again thanx for ur help

Ing clauses

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