Heading

[jutfrank]

Hm. They seem the same to me. (And see post #7.)

Yes, they mean effectively the same thing despite the grammatical difference.

Ju, this is just another example of English's infinite gray areas. Neither suffix sounds more active than the other to me, but one does to Jutfrank.

I meant to say that I think one could understand the difference between I'm heading home and I'm headed home as being active/passive (based on the present/past participle forms) but I don't think that that would be very helpful to Ju.

One might just as usefully consider headed as an adjective here (there is a sense in which all past participles can be seen as adjectives), but not many people would want to consider heading as an adjective. To me, this shows that these words are probably better understood as verbs.

We sometimes use past participle forms when there is a sense of something on a fixed course.

This train is bound for Chatanooga.
He's destined for greatness.
The bomb is set to explode on contact.
The plane is headed for the mountain!

In all the above examples, I think you could understand the bold words as adjectives, but you could also understand these sentences to be passive. If the train/bomb/plane is bound/set/headed, it is become somebody or something has bound/set/headed it. if the course is fixed, it is because something has fixed it.

This is just how I see this. I didn't mean to complicate things unnecessarily.

 

[Ju]

If you're referring to something outside the question, use that:

- Is that the kid who stole your bike?
- Ari said the test is tomorrow. Is that correct?

If you're refering to something inside the question, us it:

- Is it time to get pizza?
- Is it correct to ask lots of questions?

I'm sorry. I don't understand what is inside and outside of the question. To me, they are all inside.