active and passive sentences

hello,

I have a couple of questions with reference to active and passive sentences.

A simple example
A.: He drove the car.
P.: The car was driven by him.
So far all right.

An another example
A.: A earthquake destroyed  the hotel.
P.: The Hotel was destroyed by a earthquake (wrong).
     The Hotel was being destroyed by a earthquake (correct).

Could anyone tell me the exceptional case?

thanks in anticipation


Cevy Bel Air 01

Okay, thanks a lot.

Alienvoord wrote:

The hotel was destroyed by an earthquake. The hotel was being destroyed by an earthquake. There's nothing wrong with either of these.

Grammatically, Yes, there is nothing wrong. However, the context does seem strange with " hotel was being being destroyed by the earthquake". An earthquake can destroy a structure in a blink of an eye. So "being destroyed" has an annotation of slowly happening.

OK thanks, Goodman

1 - answered elsewhere

2 a letter used to be written by him.