PetroVietnam Construction (PVX) resumed its role as the most active stock with 2.88 million shares changing hands.
I am confused about the present participle “changing”. Because “share” itself cann’t change hand, therefore I think that it should be “changed hand”.
Could you eplain about this?
Hi,
“to change hands” is a figure of speech, you shouldn’t take it literally.
If a thing (in this case shares) changes hands, it is passed from one person to another (it changes the owner).
Well, thank you!
Here is the definition from the link you gave:
change hands
[for something] to be sold or passed from owner to owner. (From the “point of view” of the object that is passed on.) How many times has this lot changed hands in the last ten years? We built this house in 1970, and it has never changed hands.
“change hand” itself has already passive meaning that I didn’t know. I get it!
***** NOT A TEACHER *****
Hello,
Great question as usual.
I was just wondering: would rearranging the words maybe make the sentence a little clearer?
With 2.88 million shares changing hands, PVX resumed its role as the most active stock.
I believe that some books consider “with 2.88 million shares changing hands” a so-called absolute construction. That is, it has no grammatical connection to the main sentence.
It seems to be an elegant way to say something like:
Because 2.88 million shares changed hands, PVX resumed its role as the most active stock."
NOTE:
If you wish to keep your original sentence, I believe that it would be necessary to use a comma after the word “stock.”
James
Hello, Mr. James!
Thank you very much for your detail reply. I want to ask you some questions. While searching for the definition of “absolute construction”, I came across a following sentence.
The referee having finally arrived, the game began.
The phrase “The referee having finally arrived” is called the absolute clause. It isn’t considered “participial phrase” because it is not intended to modify any noun at all. As far as I know, the using of “having finally arrived” to mean that the action “arrive” happened before the action “began”.
Am I right?
Is this structure used widely in Speaking English?
***** NOT A TEACHER *****
-
I believe that you are right: Because the referee had finally arrived, the game began.
-
I believe that absolute constructions are more suited to written English.
If you use too many absolute constructions in speech, people would find that very unusual or even humorous:
Mother: It’s only 10 o’clock. Why are you home so early?
Child: The teacher being absent, the class was dismissed for the day.
Child: Because the teacher was absent, the class was …
As you can see, any mother would find the first answer very strange!
James
Thank you, James!
I am always confused about the use of “being” in a sentence. Therefore, could you help me with this one?
The teacher being absent, the class was dismissed for the day.
Can I omit “being” in the sentence? I think it maybe has something to do with “to be absent”. Because “absent” is an adjective and it is usually preceded by “be” and when we change it into present participle, we have to add “ing”, right?
If you omit “being” in “The teacher being absent”, you don’t have any verb there. You could say that the class was dismissed for the day by the absent teacher, but that wouldn’t be true.
Passive sentences make for boring writing. Active sentences jump, sing, dance, celebrate, weep, and keep the reader interested.
***** NOT A TEACHER *****
Hello,
-
Since you are a learner, I think that it would be a good idea for you to follow Mr. Thomas’s excellent advice: use the “being.”
-
You are correct, however, in thinking that native speakers sometimes delete the “being.”
a. Here is an example from one of my favorite books:
“Dinner being over, we assembled in the parlor.”
The author says that we could also say “Dinner over, we assembled in the parlor.” He says that this happens “occasionally” when the reader can easily think of the missing participle.
James
Credit: English Review Grammar by Walter Kay Smart
This is a horrible sentence. It might be ‘grammatically correct’ but it most definitely doesn’t sound good. As Steve has said, try to avoid difficult or unusual constructions. Avoid the passive. Write active sentences for active people.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC short conversations: Confirming an order on the phone.[YSaerTTEW443543]
The main problem is that of the misrelated/unrelated participle. It is assumed that when you begin a sentence with a participle, the next word (pronoun/noun) is the subject of that verb and that isn’t the case in the sentences above.
Alan
Thank you, Steve!
Could you explain why the phrase need verb? If I omit “being”, can I consider “absent” a postmodifier for the noun “The teacher”?
Well, it is new to me. Thank for sharing this. My teacher said that native speakers like to use passive sentences such as:
The noodle bowl is eaten by me.
I am loved by her.
But I have read an article about passive speech and it isn’t entirely true. Passive sentences are used for particular purposes.
Thank you, James:
I have to admit that I have yet got it. Can you tell me what is the difference in meaning between two sentences bellow?
- Dinner being over, we assembled in the parlor.
- Dinner is over, we assembled in the parlor.
Is #2 a correct sentence?
Thanks a lot, Torsten!
Could you explain why the sentence above is horrible?
Why the sentence above is a passive sentence?
Thank you, Alan!
Why is the sentence horrible? Very simple: Because nobody would ever use it when speaking and very few people would use it in writing. The sentence is difficult to understand. We should use language to get our ideas across, not to complicate things. Why not simply say: After the referee finally arrived, the game began?[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC short conversations: A customer books a flight to Tokyo.[YSaerTTEW443543]
***** NOT A TEACHER *****
Hello,
- I am reasonably confident that a teacher would not be happy with that sentence.
a. One reason is that it contains a so-called comma fault.
b. If you wanted to write such a sentence, maybe the following would be considered grammatically correct:
Dinner was over; we assembled in the parlor.
c. Thus, I guess that you have a wide choice of sentences from which to choose:
Dinner being over, we assembled in the parlor.
Dinner over, we assembled in the parlor.
Because dinner was over, we assembled in the parlor.
Dinner was over; we assembled in the parlor.
Dinner was over, so we assembled in the parlor.
James
Thanks, Torsten!
Your version is much easier to understand. I understand it completely. But there are many complex sentences that I don’t know and I want to learn and use them. I have heard that in exams like IELTS or TOELF, if you want to get a good mark, you have to use complex sentence not simple sentence, right?
Hello James:
Thank you and sorry for my mistake. My intended word is "was " but it is, maybe, because I was sleepy!
Your suggestions are very useful. There are many ways to say the same thing.
The two first sentences are the most difficult sentences for me. I have no problem in understanding three last sentences.
Alan,
Please come up with some examples to explain the grammar -
“When you begin a sentence with a participle, the next word (pronoun/noun) is the subject of that verb.”
Thanks.