RonPurewal Wrote:
you're actually asking the wrong question; the question you should be asking is when you should eliminate "being".
the answer to that question is, ROUGHLY, that you should avoid "being" when expressing the IDENTITY or CHARACTERISTICS of some individual or thing. this is because "being" is usually unnecessary in such cases; there are simpler modifiers (such as appositives) that, while absolutely impossible to use in spoken language, are better in written language.
example:
being a cigar aficionado, john has strong opinions on when to use single-guillotine cigar cutters rather than double-guillotine cutters. --> bad.
a cigar aficionado, john has strong opinions on when to use single-guillotine cigar cutters rather than double-guillotine cutters. --> good. notice that we can simply omit the "being" here.
you don't want to omit "being" here, because it's not expressing identity: in the context of (e), it's a necessary verbal. (nice litmus test: try omitting it and see whether the sentence is still viable, perhaps with minor modifications. here, it isn't.)
so, to sum up:
if "being" expresses IDENTITY or CHARACTERISTICS, then kill it.
otherwise, evaluate it on the same merits as you would any other verb.
Hello
According to your explanation we should not use 'being' if it expresses IDENTITY or CHARACTERISTICS.
However, in option E, doesn't 'being' describe the characteristics of the executives. The characteristic highlighted is : "heavily committed to a course of action ".
Doubt 2: Why is option A incorrect ?
I eliminated A because in "makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear " there is no subject in the sentence who performs the actions of 'missing the signs' and 'misinterpreting them'.
Could you explain the flaw in option A ?