Home › Forums › Grammar and vocabulary › "formed of", "formed from" or "formed by"
      TeachingEnglish
      "formed of", "formed from" or "formed by"
      Submitted by andersjor on 24 March, 2010 - 19:39

      Hi everyone!

      I teach English grammar to Danish and international business students in Denmark. I have a question.

      In a home assignment where the students were to identify the tense of certain verb phrases in a text, many of my students wrote something like:

      ' "Is seeking" is the present continuous. It is formed by the present simple form of "to be" and the present participle.'

      To me "formed by" sounds strange (probably because I want an agent in a by-phrase like that), so I googled it as well as the alternatives "formed of" and "formed from", which I also found in some of the assignments. I wasn't really able to find anything definite.

      Any comments please :-)

      ‹ Being conscious of grammar rules reduces fluency The difference between continuous and present participle form of the verb ›

      Tag
      nightjar's picture
      nightjar
      "formed of", "formed from" or "formed by"
      Submitted on 4 May, 2010 - 12:44

      Hello andersjor

      In the example you give, I would use "formed from".

      "Formed by", being conditional, requires something further to be done to the words, implying that to finish the sentence, further action is required. 

      I would certainly not use "formed of".

      Hope this isn't as clear as mud.

       

      sahbi's picture
      sahbi
      From - of - by
      Submitted on 5 July, 2010 - 17:13

      Hi guys,

       

      To my knowledge, i think it's a matter of prepostions. This means that it depends on the prepostion not really the verb or adjective that comes before the prepostions.

      Therefore, (formed of), (formed from) and (formed by) can be the same as made from, made of and made by. In other words, we use of when the thing spoken about is made of one material (item), and from when the thing is made from more than one material, and finally by when we talk about the (doer/agent).

       

      In= place

      Of= one material

      From= more than one material

      By= maker/doer . .

       

      PS: you may want to check the whole concept on a Longman integrated coursebook called:

      Practice and Progress - New Concepts English. (by L. G. Alexander)