A history of the English Language

210.
The Progressive Passive.
The extension of such forms to the passive 
(the house is being built)
was an even later 
development. It belongs to the very end of the eighteenth century. Old English had no 
progressive passive. Such an expression as 
the man is loved, feared, hated
is progressive 
only in so far as the verbs 
loving, fearing, hating
imply a continuous state. But no such 
force attaches to 
the man is killed,
which does not mean 
the man is being killed
but 
indicates a completed act. The construction 
the man is on laughing
was capable also of a 
passive significance under certain circumstances. Thus 
the house is on building
can 
suggest only that the house is in process of construction. This use is found from the 
fourteenth century on, and in its weakened form the construction is not unknown today. 
Colloquially, at least, we say 
there is nothing doing at the mill this week
.
 The dinner is 
cooking
and 
the coffee is brewing
are familiar expressions. In some parts of America one 
may hear 
there’s a new barn a-building down the road
. When the preposition was 
completely lost 
(on building
>
a-building
>
building)
the form became 
the house is 
building
. Because such an expression may at times be either active or passive, it had 
obvious limitations. Thus 
the wagon is making
is a passive, but 
the wagon is making a 
noise
is active. And whenever the subject of the sentence is animate or capable of 
performing the action, the verb is almost certain to be in the active voice 
(the man is 
building a house)
. With some verbs the construction was impossible in a passive sense. 
Thus the idea 
he is always being called
could not be expressed by 
he is always calling
. 
In the last years of the eighteenth century we find the first traces of our modern 
expression 
the house is being built
. The combination of 
being
with a past participle to 
form a participial phrase had been in use for some time. Shakespeare says: 
which, being 
kept close, might move more grief to hide (Hamlet)
. This is thought to have suggested the 
new verb phrase. The earliest instance of the construction that has been noted is from the 
year 1769.
54
In 1795 Robert Southey wrote: 
a fellow, whose uppermost upper grinder is 
being torn out by a mutton-fisted barber
. It seems first to have been recognized in an 
English grammar in 1802.
55
As yet it is generally used only in the present and simple past 
tense (
is
or 
was being built
)
.
We can hardly say 
the house has been being built for two 
years,
and we avoid saying 
it will be being built next spring
. 
The history of the new progressive passive shows that English is a living and growing 
thing, that its grammar is not fixed, that it will continue to change in the future as it has 
changed in the past, even if more slowly. If the need is felt for a new and better way of
54 
OED,
s.v. 
be
. 
55 
The history of this construction was first traced by Fitzedward Hall in his book 
Modern English
(New York, 1873). Much valuable material is assembled by Alfred Akerlund in 
On the History of