Dear Members,
Can you please tell me whether the following sentence is right or wrong. I am confused in the underline part(being of assistance). What is the meaing of this ? Why it has been used ? I know after preposting gerund/noun comes.
1) We look forward to being of assistance in addressing the diagnostic needs of your organisation.
Looking forward to your help. Thanks
Can you please tell me whether the following sentence is right or wrong. I am confused in the underline part(being of assistance). What is the meaing of this ? Why it has been used ? I know after preposting gerund/noun comes.
1) We look forward to being of assistance in addressing the diagnostic needs of your organisation.
Looking forward to your help. Thanks
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Comments
You can say, "I am glad that I was able to help at the party".
Or you can say, more formally, "I am glad that I was able to be of assistance at the party".
So "being of assistance" means "helping".
We look forward to [helping / being of assistance] in addressing ...
The sentence is correct.
CJ
But query still exist in my mind.
1) How can I know that I have to add being ? Is word "being" in this sentence make the word "assistance", noun / verbal noun.
2) I am glad that I was able to be of assistance at the party". - can we write this sentence in "being" form.
3) to be of help means to help - But be of confuses me. Likewise being of assistance means helping - How ??
Hope you can understand, where is the problem.
while,"we look forward to helping you" is not vey good.Beause it means "we hope that you should meet difficulties as soon as possible,so that we can help you"
be of = have/has
eg"it's of no importance= it has no importance
It is my opinion that we may say «I look forward to being of assistance» if we wish to be deferential.
It is also my opinion that we may say «I look forward to helping you» if we are confident that we will be asked to help.
But it is only my opinion.
Kind regards,
Goldmund
No. Unlike "look forward to", the expression "to be able" (in the form "was able" in this sentence) must be followed by an infinitive ("to be"), not a gerund ("being").
Yes, it is confusing. A form of "to be" followed by "of" and a noun is usually equivalent to "to be" followed by an adjective of similar meaning. It is an idiomatic use of an "of" phrase. Here are some other examples.
to be of use = to be useful
to be of help = to be helpful
to be of importance = to be important
to be of significance = to be significant
to be of consequence = to be consequential
to be of interest = to be interesting
to be of assistance = to be helpful (because there is no word "assistanceful"!)
to be of worth = to be valuable (because there is no word "worthful"!)
CJ