Timeline for Gerund Phrase as Subject
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
17 events
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| Oct 16, 2012 at 8:42 | comment | added | user21497 | @Kris: Just saw your comment above: "I understand the sentences differently. Grammar and formal semantics may not agree with me. – Kris" I definitely agree with you: They don't agree with you in general (based on my reading many of your answers & comments). But you still don't give your different understandings. Please explain yourself: You may have an interesting point to make. | |
| Oct 16, 2012 at 8:19 | comment | added | user21497 | @Kris: if Were the comment grammatical, it might help. State is transitive, but your comment has no DO. Second, why would you think I didn't read it more than once, given its brevity? Still, the burden of proof is on you. I expressed an opinion that you contradicted without explaining. If my opinion's wrong, I'd like to know why. I don't play parlor games, attend seances, or claim to be an authority on everything linguistic. If you're simply giving me moral advice, like "Do not covet thy neighbor's wife", then please remove your miter: I don't attend your church. | |
| Oct 16, 2012 at 7:02 | comment | added | Kris | @BillFranke Rereading the comment may help. | |
| Oct 16, 2012 at 6:18 | comment | added | user21497 | @Kris: Maybe, if your comment were clear, I'd understand what you intended to say. If you think those two sentences have different meanings, you could at least delineate them. As it is, you seem expect me to read your mind and accept your vague criticism as if it were an article of faith that everyone else would subscribe to, were they asked to do so. My opinion is merely my opinion. YMMV. You think I'm wrong? Then demonstrate it, please. Don't bellow on an empty stomach. | |
| Oct 16, 2012 at 5:06 | comment | added | Kris | -1 "Both sentences in your question mean the same thing." -- Maybe you should not be that categorical in stating, at least. | |
| Oct 16, 2012 at 0:55 | comment | added | user21497 | @matt3141: I haven't looked at that test for decades, so I'm not qualified to give advice about it. What I know about standardized English tests is that they want what is considered formally correct English, the kind that writing teachers demand, not merely idiomatic spoken English, so if you come across a question like "He gave it to John and I" vs. "He gave it to John and me", the latter is the only correct answer even though a substantial number of native speakers of English would write & say the former & descriptive linguists defend the former as idiomatic & acceptable. | |
| Oct 16, 2012 at 0:22 | comment | added | matt3141 | @BillFranke As a previous item writer do you have any advice for someone taking the PSAT on Wednesday? | |
| Oct 16, 2012 at 0:22 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | @FumbleFingers It's even worse in business writing, where gerunds almost never have objects. Selling annuities is felt to be unprofessional, it must be translated into The selling of annuities. | |
| Oct 16, 2012 at 0:03 | comment | added | user21497 | @FumbleFingers: My only evidence is my reading. I'm an editor of academic journal articles and often have check sources to understand what my Taiwanese authors' sentences really want to say, so I end up reading all kinds of academic papers in dozens of fields every day. I have no quantitative evidence, only my general impressions. It's skewed, I'm sure, but those are the shadows I see on the walls of my little cave. | |
| Oct 15, 2012 at 23:59 | comment | added | user21497 | @matt3141: No, I'm not disappointed to learn that it comes from the PSAT. It's standard and idiomatic academic English, and PSAT item writers are just the kind of folks who'd use that kind of English. I used to be an item writer in a previous life (not when I was married to Bridey Murphy, but when I was a linguistics graduate student in 1980 or 1981). | |
| Oct 15, 2012 at 23:55 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | You may be right that given contexts where it's possible, writers of "academic prose" do indeed prefer the more "wordy" second versiuon (which I feel is also more "impersonal, detached"). Clearly my example shows this isn't always easy or natural. I was just asking if you have any evidence for saying there's a preference. Maybe it's characteristic of academic style, but I don't feel any such preference. | |
| Oct 15, 2012 at 23:54 | comment | added | user21497 | @StoneyB: Writers are definitely the ones we remember, but I hear my native Anglophone friends here in Taiwan overusing those deverbals and verbosities like "prior to" in their everyday speech all the time. It's disheartening but not surprising. I like that word "scientificity". Reminds me of "idiomaticity", another favorite. | |
| Oct 15, 2012 at 23:51 | comment | added | matt3141 | The word choice of "enhances" was actually from the PSAT, which may disappoint you. For some reason gerund phrases always appear dangling or out of place when I read them. | |
| Oct 15, 2012 at 23:50 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | I don't think it's speakers (aside from rhetors) so much as writers who overuse deverbals, and I think it reflects the greater 'scientificity' ascribed to nouns by insecure writers. | |
| Oct 15, 2012 at 23:48 | comment | added | user21497 | I read academic prose written by native English-speakers every day. In books, academic journals, and Internet blogs. That's the current style. You're right about the set phrase "making love": it can't be said as "a making of love", but it can be as "the making of love", although I haven't seen that one yet, AFAIK. I made no absolutist statement about what native speakers always prefer, just often prefer. I also said: "In another case? Who knows? Give us specific pairs to look at." You just did and I agree that the answer is No in this case. | |
| Oct 15, 2012 at 23:41 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | Do you have any evidence for saying native speakers "often prefer" OP's second version? It seems to me "Making love can decrease stress levels" is structurally much the same as OP's first example, but you can't even say "A making of love can...", let alone prefer it. | |
| Oct 15, 2012 at 23:30 | history | answered | user21497 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |