Manner of being

Posted by Word Camel on September 01, 2005

In Reply to: Manner of being posted by Russ Cable on August 31, 2005

: : What does "manner of being" exactly mean?
: : Is it same as "manner of existence"?

: Can you give the context you're interested in? I can imagine some contexts where they might be close, but "What manner of being is that?" and "What manner of existence is that?" are certainly different.

I'm guessing, on the basis of no evidence, granted, that "being" is used in the sense of a person. I'm thinking that "being" is used because the subject of the conversaton may be fantastic so that the speaker isn't sure what it is. Imagine someone in a story sees a water sprite, for instance. He might wonder "What manner of being is this?" So he's wondeirng if it's a human being or something else. He isn't sure.

• Manner of being Chome 03/September/05