English Consulting

Hi, thank you for asking. No, I don't see anything clearly "wrong" with your sentence in grammar, but I would just point out that the definite article "the" before "blood pressure" is often omitted in sentences like these when the reference of "blood pressure" is general. When "the" is used before "blood pressure" in sentences like this, the meaning is more like 'the blood pressure *of* the human body' which explains why we use "the," i.e., because it's a *specific* blood pressure. But still, I really don't think any English speakers would object to either way of saying this in your sentence, "blood pressure" or "the blood pressure" (though some people always argue for saying things in the "simplest" way with as few words as necessary, i.e., just "blood pressure."

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Also, grammatically "also" can be placed after "can" in your sentence [sorry for all the repetition; purely intentional] and I do think that's its more natural position, but due to the specific context of this sentence maybe you had a good reason, like emphasis or contrast, to put "also" before "can," and I really believe there's no problem with that.

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Related to the point I made above about simplicity, it's possible some people might also say some other words in your sentence are unnecessary, principally the verb "help," i.e., they might prefer something simpler like "can significantly lower." "Help" is a kind of "weasel word" in English, that is, its meaning is often so vague that we can use it when we're really not sure of the precise meaning of what we want to say. That is, if you say, "can help . . . lower the blood pressure," a question a reader or listener might have is "how exactly does it (yoga) help? Is the yoga the main factor in reducing blood pressure, or must yoga be done concert with something else, e.g., reducing stress in one's life, to lower blood pressure?" Again, that's something that probably only medical specialists could answer, but it illustrates what might happen whenever you do use too many "weasel words" like "help."

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I hope this helps. Thank you again for asking me.

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"I have only myself to blame" would be considered by many people to be "more correct" than "I only have myself to blame" because in the former the word "only" is placed before "myself," which such people would say is its "proper" or "logical" position since the meaning of the sentence is clearly to express a limitation on who can be "blamed," i.e., "only" myself (and no one else).

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People who think this way would argue that putting "only" before "have" *must* change the meaning of the sentence because in this case the limiting meaning would fall on "have," and such a sentence and meaning would be appropriate just in a (strained and unrealistic) context like "I imagined someone else to blame, but I only have (in reality) myself to blame."

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Such a position overlooks the predominant fact of English usage that the "scope" of words like "only" and "just" can cover much larger parts of a sentence than simply the words they immediately precede, and indeed often apply to their entire containing sentences. The point is that almost every speaker of English will interpret "I only have myself to blame" as actually putting the limiting focus on "myself" instead of "have," for the main reason that the usual, natural position of words like "only" is before the main verb of sentence, regardless of what other word or phrase of the sentence it "logically" modifies. Thus, I believe that very few English speakers would say that a sentence like "I only have myself to blame" is "wrong."

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O.K., thank you. Then returning to your original question, the difference between "being + V3" and "been + V3" is, superficially, the presence in the former of the "-ing" form of the verb "be" and in the latter of the past participle--or V3--form of "be." And of course the larger question is about, as you stated it, "[w]hen [do] we use each one."

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They key is that both of these constructions will occur only with the use of the passive voice, whose essential formula is "be + V3." I assume you're aware of the distinction in English between the active voice and the passive voice; put simply, the active is S V O, e.g. "A hacker stole this information" where the active, transitive verb "stole" has as its subject "a hacker" and the noun phrase "this information" is the (direct) object of the active verb "stole," whereas the passive is S[o] be + V3 (by [s]), which just means that the object in the active becomes the subject of the passive, the verb phrase of the passive is a form of "be" plus the V3 form of the whatever the verb is, and then the subject of the active is now expressed after the preposition "by" or sometimes the entire "by"-phrase is omitted.Thus, the passive equivalent of "A hacker stole this information" is "This information was stolen by a hacker" or just "This information was stolen."

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(And I'm just making a guess: I'd bet that in whatever system of English grammar you're studying, the base form of a verb is "V1" and the simple past tense is "V2." If so, then note that the irregular English verb "steal" has the V1 form "steal," the V2 form "stole" and the V3 "stolen.")

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Now getting back to "being + V3" and "been + V3," as I said above these will always signal the passive voice, and the difference is just arises from the principle aspect of the verb. Without getting into too much detail because of course that's not my style, "being + V3" is used in a progressive (also known as "continuous") aspect, e.g., "The information is being stolen," the present progressive passive, or "The information was being stolen," the past progressive passive, whereas "been + V3" occurs with the perfect aspect, e.g., "The information has been stolen," present perfect passive, or "The information had been stolen," past perfect passive.

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I hope this helps. And darn, I would LOVE to talk more about the progressive and perfect aspects, but ask.fm just isn't giving me enough space here. ;-)

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