than that, the question about unco-passives never occurred.  Many critics have passed judgement upon them since, and so generally with reprobation, that the man must have more hardihood than sense, who will yet disgust his readers or hearers with them.[270] That “This new form has been used by some respectable writers,” we need not deny; but let us look at the given “instances of it:  ‘For those who are being educated in our seminaries.’  R. SOUTHEY.—­’It was being uttered.’  COLERIDGE.—­’The foundation was being laid.’  BRIT.  CRITIC.”—­English Grammar with Worcester’s Univ. and Crit.  Dict., p. xlvi.  Here, for the first example, it would be much better to say, “For those who are educated,” [271]—­or, “who are receiving their education;” for the others, “It was uttering,”—­“was uttered,”—­or, “was in uttering.”—­“The foundation was laying,”—­“was laid,”—­or, “was about being laid.”  Worcester’s opinion of the “new form” is to be inferred from his manner of naming it in the following sentence:  “Within a few years, a strange and awkward neologism has been introduced, by which the present passive participle is substituted, in such cases as the above, for the participle in ing.”—­Ibid. He has two instances more, in each of which the phrase is linked with an expression of disapprobation; “’ It [[Greek:  tetymmenos]] signifies properly, though in uncouth English, one who is being beaten.’  ABP.  WHATELY.—­’The bridge is being built, and other phrases of the like kind, have pained the eye.’  D. BOOTH.”—­Ibid.[272]

OBS. 24.—­Richard Hiley, in the third edition of his Grammar, published in London, in 1840, after showing the passive use of the participle in ing, proceeds thus:  “No ambiguity arises, we presume, from the use of the participle in this manner.  To avoid, however, affixing a passive signification to the participle in ing, an attempt has lately been made to substitute the passive participle in its place.  Thus instead of ’The house was building,’ ‘The work imprinting,’ we sometimes hear, ’The house was being built,’ ‘The work is being printed.’  But this mode is contrary to the English idiom, and has not yet obtained the sanction of reputable authority.”—­Hiley’s Gram., p. 30.

OBS. 25.—­Professor Hart, of Philadelphia, whose English Grammar was first published in 1845, justly prefers the usage which takes the progressive form occasionally in a passive sense; but, in arguing against the new substitute, he evidently remoulds the early reasoning of Dr. Bullions, errors and all; a part of which he introduces thus:  “I know the correctness of this mode of expression has lately been very much assailed, and an attempt, to some extent successful, has been made [,] to introduce the form [,] ’is being built.’ But, in the