Since they'd have to back up either of those claims, it's easier to blame 'the ether' for their statement.īeing here is a gerund-this is the name we give verbforms with -ing when they (or the clauses which they head) are employed as nominals. 'Statistically, children are reacting to fantasy in fairy tales more now than ever before' 'There is too much fantasy in fairy tales' There are maybe two sentence types in which you can use it, the examples I just gave, and it often comes off as passive/aggressive or pretentious.It's usually used to deflect a negative statement away from oneself: the speaker does not wish to take responsibility for their statement. That's why 'there being' is so restrictive. It's the food's fault there is so much salt, the speaker is not involved. In the last two examples, food is the subject of the sentence. In the first three examples, there is a direct subject (I, he, she, Emma) and food is the direct object of the sentence. 'They've complained about there being too much salt in the food.'

'I'm tired of there being too much salt in the food' 'I'm worried about there being too much salt in the food.' 'Emma said there is too much salt in the food.' 'I feel there is too much salt in the food.' 'I think there is too much salt in the food.' Let's look at other ways to say this, with the subjects left in: 'I'm worried about there being too much salt in the food' (passive voice, implies a global subject, or the subject 'you') 'There is too much salt in the food' (active voice, implies the subject 'I') 'He was punched in the face' (passive voice) 'I punched him in the face' (active voice) 'There is' relates your next clause to a direct subject, yourself, where 'there being' puts the 'blame' on the object doing the action. 'there being' is simply the passive form of 'there is'.

Being there