David Zapatka
Reader Luz Stella Perotti wrote, “I had a SPLENDID time reading that one (Splendor). It is one of my favorite words.”
While reading a fiction writers evaluation team’s comments about what makes a story successful, I came across these sentences, “Successful: tight writing, sharp dialogue, creative use of language, vivid imagery, a surprising development, or a conflict solved. Unsuccessful: rambling or disorganized prose and/or dialogue, over-writing to get one’s point across, too many gerunds, misspelled words and grammatical errors, and overt, off-putting authorial intrusion.”
Gerund—je-rənd noun: an English noun formed from a verb by the addition of -ing that is capable of being modified by adverbs and taking an object. especially: the English verbal noun ending in -ing that has the function of a substantive and at the same time shows the verbal features of tense, voice, and capacity to take adverbial qualifiers and to govern objects.
Origin and Etymology—Late Latin gerundium, from Latin gerundus, gerundive of gerere to bear, carry on
First Known Use—1513
Used in a sentence:
In the sentence “Everyone enjoyed Tyler’s singing,” the word “singing” is a gerund.
Gerund used on the web:
But we still haven’t reached the promised land of g’s at the end of our gerunds—NPR
A gerund is a verb form that functions as a noun. A gerund is created by adding the suffix “-ing” to the base form of a verb. Like all nouns, gerunds can be used as subjects, objects of verbs, objects of prepositions, or complements. For example:
- Swimming is permitted in the lake. (subject of “is”)
- I hate running. (object of the verb “hate”)
- I was accepted after learning some Italian. (object of the preposition “after”)
- Her passion is dancing. (complement of the subject “her passion”)
Properties of a Gerund
Unlike a normal noun, a gerund maintains some verb-like properties. A gerund can take a direct object and be modified with an adverb.
- drinking a cup (The gerund drinking has a direct object, a cup.)
- driving erratically (The gerund driving is modified with an adverb, erratically.)
- regularly visiting the hospital (The gerund visiting is modified with an adverb, regularly, and has a direct object, the hospital.)
Examples of Gerunds
Like all nouns, a gerund can function in one of four ways. Here is each way of using the gerund “visiting”:
1. The Subject of a Verb. Visiting Chicago is always an experience. (“Visiting” is the subject of the verb “is.”)
2. The Object of a Verb. I love visiting Chicago. (“Visiting” is the direct object of the verb “love.”)
3. The Object of a Preposition. I surprised them by visiting Chicago. (“Visiting” is the object of the preposition “by.”)
4. A Subject Complement. My highlight was visiting Chicago. (“Visiting” is a subject complement. It completes the linking verb “was” and renames the subject, making it a subject complement.)
Please submit your experiences or any word you may like to share along with your insights and comments to [email protected].