Bored vs. Boring: Active Sentence Describe Cause Describe Result
Bored vs. Boring: Active Sentence Describe Cause Describe Result
Bored vs. Boring: Active Sentence Describe Cause Describe Result
boring Page 1 of 3
Examples:
The movie was the cause of my emotion, so it is described with an -ing form. My emotion, the result, is
described with an -ed form. The following table summarizes this.
We can see from the examples that the -ing form refers to the subject of the active sentence, and the -ed
form refers to the object of the active sentence. In the first example, boring refers to movie (subject) and
bored refers to me (object) in the active sentence.
We can also see that things can only be described with the -ing form because things cannot have
emotions. People, on the other hand, can be described with either -ing or -ed forms because they can
produce emotions in other people or experience emotions themselves.
http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/englishcorner/grammar/rules/bored.html 7/12/2009
bored vs. boring Page 2 of 3
http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/englishcorner/grammar/rules/bored.html 7/12/2009
bored vs. boring Page 3 of 3
http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/englishcorner/grammar/rules/bored.html 7/12/2009