Is "...standing up and then forgetting the question." an abbreviation for "I was standing up and then I was forgetting the question"?
***** NOT A TEACHER *****
Hello, Kompstar:
A teacher has
already answered you. I just wanted to expand on the answer.
In my
opinion, "Standing up and then forgetting the question" is NOT a shorter way to express the past progressive. I believe that it is accurate to say that "I was forgetting the question" is not natural English.
Please look at these examples that I found in a very reliable book:
1. "He walked out of the room and slamm
ed the door behind him."
2. "He walked out of the room,
slamming the door behind him."
What do you think?
Is it possible that the "original" sentence was something like: "I stood up and then forgot the question. I made an a-- of myself."
Using the participle, we get one smooth sentence: "I made an a-- of myself, standing up and then forgetting the question."
In fact, if you rearrange the words, maybe this idea becomes clearer:
Standing up and then forgetting the question,
I made an a-- of myself.
(IF I have understood him correctly, I wish to credit L.G. Alexander's
Longman English Grammar, 1988.)