A very common error I often hear ESL speakers commit is the misuse of the words “bored” and “boring.”  These two words are homophones.  Unfortunately, when you misuse or interchange one of these words for the other there is a big difference in meaning!  When you say someone or something is “boring” you are saying it is not interesting or dull.  When you say someone is “bored” you are saying she of he lacks interest in the activity that she or he are currently doing.  I know you don’t want to accidentally call someone boring, which is an insult**, if you can help it.  So, today I’m going to give you all the information you need to know so you don’t ever make this mistake.

Both of the words “bored” and “boring” come from the verb “to bore,” which generally means to tire or make weary by being dull, repetitious, or uninteresting.  This verb expresses the experience of an emotion.  Most verbs that express emotions allow the use of either their present or past participle forms to be used as adjectives, while the meaning of the two different participle forms are not always the same. The -ing form (present participle) expresses the cause of the emotion, and the -ed form (past participle) expresses the result.

Here is an example using both the present and past participle forms of the verb to bore as adjectives in one sentence.

The class was boring, so the students were bored.

In this example, the class was the cause of the emotion, so it is described with the -ing participle form. The students’ emotion, the result, is described with the -ed participle form.

Here is the same example laid out again in a different way to help illustrate the difference in the two different forms.

Active Sentence                            Cause                                  Result
The class bored the students.         The class was boring.         The students were bored.

In the above examples you can see that the -ing form refers to the subject of the sentence, and the -ed form refers to the object of the sentence.   You may also have notice that things can only be described with the -ing form because things, cannot have emotions only people (and sometimes animals) can experience emotions.  (Hint: An easy way to help you remember this is to remember that the word things ends in –ing and the –ing adjective form can be used to describe things.)

Here are some more examples of other verbs that express emotion and are commonly used in the present participle (-ing) and past participle (-ed) adjectives forms:

This movie is interesting (so I am interested in the movie).
My girlfriend has very annoying habits (so I am annoyed).
The English language can be confusing (so a lot of students are confused).
My husband’s layoff** was surprising (so we were very surprised).
The football game was exciting (so the fans were excited).

Finally, here is a recap*** of what you need to remember so you can use the adjectives bored and boring correctly.  Adjectives that end with -ed talk about one’s own feelings, whereas adjectives that end with -ing talk about a person, a thing, or a situation that causes feelings.  So, “boring” is an adjective that describes something or someone that is not fun or interesting and “bored” is an adjective that describes how someone feels when something is not fun or interesting.

I hope this review wasn’t too boring!

* insult =  a disrespect comment

** layoff = discharged from work, not due to any unsatisfactory performance of the employee

***recap = a summary that is restated