{"id":517,"date":"2012-03-01T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T14:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/?p=517"},"modified":"2012-02-10T22:55:50","modified_gmt":"2012-02-11T03:55:50","slug":"bored-vs-boring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/bored-vs-boring\/","title":{"rendered":"Bored vs. Boring"},"content":{"rendered":"

A very common error I often hear ESL speakers commit is the misuse of the words \u201cbored\u201d and \u201cboring.\u201d\u00a0 These two words are homophones<\/a>.\u00a0 Unfortunately, when you misuse or interchange one of these words for the other there is a big difference in meaning!\u00a0 When you say someone or something is \u201cboring\u201d you are saying it is not interesting or dull.\u00a0 When you say someone is \u201cbored\u201d you are saying she of he lacks interest in the activity that she or he are currently doing.\u00a0 I know you don\u2019t want to accidentally call someone boring, which is an insult**, if you can help it.\u00a0 So, today I\u2019m going to give you all the information you need to know so you don’t ever make this mistake.<\/p>\n

Both of the words \u201cbored\u201d and \u201cboring\u201d come from the verb \u201cto bore,\u201d which generally means to tire or make weary by being dull, repetitious, or uninteresting.\u00a0 This verb expresses the experience of an emotion.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Here is an example using both the present and past participle forms of the verb to bore as adjectives in one sentence.<\/p>\n

The class was boring<\/strong>, so the students were bored<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Here is the same example laid out again in a different way to help illustrate the difference in the two different forms.<\/p>\n

Active Sentence<\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cause \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Result<\/strong>
\nThe class bored the students. \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The class was boring. \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The students were bored.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0\u00a0 You may also have notice that things<\/em> can only be described with the -ing form because things<\/em>, cannot have emotions only people (and sometimes animals) can experience emotions.\u00a0 (Hint: An easy way to help you remember this is to remember that the word thing<\/strong>s ends in \u2013<\/strong>ing and the \u2013ing adjective form can be used to describe things.)<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

This movie is interesting<\/strong><\/em> (so I am interested<\/strong><\/em> in the movie).
\nMy girlfriend has very annoying<\/strong><\/em> habits (so I am annoyed<\/strong><\/em>).
\nThe English language can be confusing<\/strong><\/em> (so a lot of students are confused<\/strong><\/em>).
\nMy husband’s layoff** was surprising<\/strong><\/em> (so we were very surprised<\/strong><\/em>).
\nThe football game was exciting<\/strong><\/em> (so the fans were excited<\/strong><\/em>).<\/p>\n

Finally, here is a recap*** of what you need to remember so you can use the adjectives bored and boring correctly.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 So, \u201cboring\u201d is an adjective that describes something or someone that is not fun or interesting and \u201cbored\u201d is an adjective that describes how someone feels when something is not fun or interesting.<\/p>\n

I hope this review wasn\u2019t too boring!<\/strong><\/p>\n

* insult =\u00a0 a disrespect comment<\/p>\n

** layoff = discharged from work, not due to any unsatisfactory performance of the employee<\/p>\n

***recap = a summary that is restated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A very common error I often hear ESL speakers commit is the misuse of the words \u201cbored\u201d and \u201cboring.\u201d\u00a0 These two words are homophones.\u00a0 Unfortunately, when you misuse or interchange one of these words for the other there is a big difference in meaning!\u00a0 When you say someone or something is \u201cboring\u201d you are saying…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[134956,135139,135370],"tags":[17,168826,169266,169080,169441],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-english-grammar","category-english-language","category-english-vocabulary","tag-adjectives","tag-bored","tag-bored-and-boring","tag-boring","tag-verbs-that-express-emotion"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":703,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions\/703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}