IN your editorial ‘Ban on ‘Maalik’ (April 29), there is a sentence which, when read aloud, jarred on the ears. It reads ‘... had been being screened ...’ Any teacher of English will give it a tick as being correct but I don’t remember the last time when I saw past perfect continuous tense being used in its passive form.

Grammar books discourage the use of passive forms of present, past and future perfect and simple future because it looks odd.

Mehboob Alam Dar

Lahore

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2016