How do I distinguish whether to use v-ing or v-ed within compound adjective?
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yixuan
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2time-consumed doesn't exist as an established word. Its obvious meaning would be "consumed by time", which doesn't make much sense. – Colin Fine Dec 20 '20 at 16:23
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@Colin Fine Yeah, it seems that I get the point – yixuan Dec 21 '20 at 04:44
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To describe any event that takes a lot of time, we use the adjective "time-consuming", not "time-consumed".
From the Cambridge dictionary,
A time-consuming task takes a lot of time to do:
Producing a dictionary is a very time-consuming job.
"time consumed" is not an adjective and it takes on the meaning of "duration", i.e. the amount of time taken for an event.
- While the average length of meetings declined, the total time consumed by meetings increased substantially.
- To begin with, the time consumed in virtual meetings exploded.
user86610
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@yixuan For the usage of
-ingand-edin general, you can check out this answer. -ed and -ing adjective, how to use it properly? – user86610 Dec 20 '20 at 10:26 -
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@KateBunting Right, I can find scattered examples of such usage online - "While the average length of meetings declined, the total time consumed by meetings increased substantially." However, I agree it's an awkward way of saying it. Will update my answer, thanks for pointing out! – user86610 Dec 20 '20 at 12:26
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@user86610 My understanding is, for example: "time-consuming task", task is agent and time is patient, task will consume time, time is instead consumed. According to grammar, the phrase "time-consumed" seems to be more correct, although I am aware of that it's wrong. – yixuan Dec 20 '20 at 13:21
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@user86610 I wasn't commenting on your answer, I was trying to indicate the difference. To use another verb as an example: An all-seeing eye can see everything, but a seldom-seen thing is not often seen by people. – Kate Bunting Dec 20 '20 at 15:13
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@KateBunting Oops, my apologies for the confusion. Thanks for your clarification too. – user86610 Dec 20 '20 at 15:15