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Jacklong Posted 21 years ago
Grammar

there being & there were

There ____ no buses to that beach, they had to ride their bicycles.

I thought " were" would be the best one to complete the sentence, but the answer is "being", why is "being"?

Thank you for help.
  

Top answer

Yes, it should be "being". There being no buses to that beach, they had to ride their bicycles. = As/because there were no buses to that beach, they had to ride their bicycles.

— Paco2004

  • Yes, it should be "being".
  • There being no buses to that beach, they had to ride their bicycles.
  • = As/because there were no buses to that beach, they had to ride their bicycles.
  • This kind of structure is called "present participle construct with a subject" or "absolute present participle construct".
  • paco
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3 Answers
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Yes, it should be "being".

There being no buses to that beach, they had to ride their bicycles.
= As/because there were no buses to that beach, they had to ride their bicycles.

This kind of structure is called "present participle construct with a subject" or "absolute present participle construct".

paco
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Jacklong,

If the sentence had been punctuated a little differently-- and the right context had been in place --'were' would have been fine:

There were no buses to that beach; [semicolon] they had to ride their bicycles.
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... or with a comma & "so" after "beach".
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