Thu, 17/04/2008 - 5:10pm — kwei
As you know, infinitives have two passive forms: "to be done "and "to have been done" What makes me puzzled is how to help the students to use the latter one correctly. Perhaps some of you would like to laugh at me :It's just a piece of cake!BUT when my students ask me :"Is it necessary for us to say---The telephone is said to have been invented by Alexanda Grahm Bell instead of saying----it is said to be invented by Alexanda Grahm Bell since we can make it clear by fewer words?" I indeed don't know how to explain to them the "reason" . This is one thing ,another thing is that my students are also confused about the usage of the passive forms of V.ing. They just can not tell the differences between the prensent passive tense and "having been done",which in fact is the passive form of V.ing.To tell you the truth,my students are really poor in grammar .Some of them even done know what subject and object or attribute is .... OMG who you help me please?
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Thu, 08/05/2008 - 5:24pm — English Online Visitor
How about "Tim's mother was said to have been beautiful when she was young"? Is this a correct sentence? What if we say "Tim's mother was said to be beautiful when she was young"? What's the difference? Which is a correct sentence or both? Thank you. ange_fang@hotmail.com
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Thu, 17/04/2008 - 6:29pm — Johnny Grammar
Hi Kwei! The difference between the two passive sentences is that 'is said to have been done/invented' is talking about the past, and 'is said to be done' is talking about something that happens regularly. For example, McDonalds is said to be eaten by 20 million people every day. That's the present simple passive, used to talk about something that happens on a regular basis. So, we wouldn't use this to talk about an invention, because inventions can only be invented once! Here's a perfect passive infinitive example, Mr X is said to have been killed by Mr Y. In this example, Mr X can only have been killed once, in the past! I hope that helps! Johnny
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