om a phrase more pure, but now somewhat
obsolete: The book is _a_ printing, The brass is _a_ forging; _a_ being
properly _at_, and _printing_ and _forging_ verbal nouns signifying action,
according to the analogy of this language."--_Gram. in Joh. Dict._, p. 9.

OBS. 4.--_A_ is certainly sometimes a _preposition_; and, as such, it may
govern a participle, and that without converting it into a "_verbal noun_."
But that such phraseology ought to be preferred to what is exhibited with
so many authorities, in a preceding paragraph, and with an example from
Johnson among the rest, I am not prepared to concede. As to the notion of
introducing a new and more complex passive form of conjugation, as, "The
bridge is _being built_," "The bridge _was being built_," and so forth, it
is one of the most absurd and monstrous innovations ever thought of. Yet
some two or three men, who seem to delight in huge absurdities, declare
that this "modern _innovation_ is _likely to supersede_" the simpler mode
of expression. Thus, in stead of, "The work _is now publishing_," they
choose to say, "The work is _now being published_."--_Kirkham's Gram._, p.
82. This is certainly no better English than, "The work _was being
published, has been being published, had been being published, shall or
will be being published, shall or will have been being published_;" and so
on, through all the moods and tenses. What a language shall we have when
our verbs are thus conjugated!

OBS. 5.--A certain _Irish_ critic, who even outdoes in rashness the
above-cited American, having recently arrived in New York, has republished
a grammar, in which he not only repudiates the passive use of the
participle in _ing_, but denies the usual passive form of the present
tense, "_I am loved, I am smitten_" &c., as taught by Murray and others, to
be good English; and tells us that the true form is, "_I am being loved, I
am being smitten_," &c. See the 98th and 103d pages of _Joseph W. Wright's
Philosophical Grammar_, (_Edition of_ 1838,) _dedicated_ "TO COMMON
SENSE!" [267] But both are offset, if not refuted, by the following
observations from a source decidedly better: "It has lately become common
to use the present participle passive [,] to express the suffering of an
action as _continuing_, instead of the participle in _-ing_ in the passive
sense; thus, instead of, 'The house _is building_,' we now very frequently
hear, 'The house _is being built_.' This mode of expression,