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Is it bad style to start a sentence with being or grammatically wrong. It´s a participle right? Still I feel it is just not it?!

Something like:

Being an English teacher means to not only teach a language but also to teach children about different cultures.

JMP
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Marcin Nowak
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2 Answers2

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Starting a sentence with "being" is perfectly correct, as long as you're using the gerund. (Or the noun "being" as in "a celestial being.") Gerunds are verbs (or rather verb phrases) that became nouns (err...noun phrases), so they function just like any other noun. That includes being the subject of a sentence. Being the subject of a sentence is okay if it's a gerund. (See?)

Other examples with different kinds of descriptors and verbs: "Being with you is eye-opening." "Being right all the time is exhausting." "Being powerful brings problems, too." "Being sick means being tired."

Iolite_Jay
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  • Please read the many threads looking at ing-forms. The terms 'gerund' / 'gerundive' / 'gerund-participle' ... are used bewilderingly and conflictingly by different authors (some reject some of these terms because they are ill-defined). Analyses also differ ("Is usage 'Xing' here that of a noun, a verb, both, or somewhere in between?") – Edwin Ashworth Feb 21 '18 at 09:00
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"...to not only teach..." sounds very awkward. It can be avoided with "Being an English teacher means teaching children not only a language but also about different cultures."

JeremyC
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