I've been slowly reading Anne Curzan's Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words. 📚

In chapter 32, passives were corrected, she quotes from a grammar critic in 1830, who writes:

“For some time past, ‘the bridge is being built,’ ‘the tunnel is being excavated,’ and other expressions of a like kind, have pained the eye and stunned the ear.”

Strong opinions!

How times change …

A language critic in 1830 says the phrase 'the bridge is being built' rather than 'the bridge is building' pains the eye and stuns the ear.