What are some paragraphs about gerunds?

Answer 1

A 'gerund' is the name given to nouns ending with -ing.

For example, in "I like cycling" the noun cycling is a gerund.

In this case you can see that it is a form and development of the verb 'to cycle.'

All gerunds are based on verbs, with -ing added on the end.

A few verb - gerund examples:

laugh - laughing

run - running

smile - smiling

The word gerund is a grammatical term derived from Latin gerundum, meaning 'that which is to be carried out.' Not all words that end with -ing are necessarily gerunds. The present participle of a verb, and that is used with the verb 'to be', also ends with -ing but is not a gerund.

For example, in "I was reading a book when you telephoned me" the main verb is was, and reading is the 'present participle' functioning as an auxiliary verb, NOT as a noun. But in "I love reading" reading in this case is a noun, a gerund.

The above information relates to the term gerund when used with reference to the English language.

In Spanish the term gerundio refers to the adverbial participle.

Different languages have different gramatical forms. Some may have near equivalents to the English gerund, but of course, will have their own linguistic styles.

Here is an example of a noun which, in English, does NOT end with -ing, but in French it does, being a gerund, a noun derived from a verb.

English: A bottle of shampoo.

French: Une bouteille de shampooing.

In this case the English word 'shampoo' means 'the soap for shampooing'.' And the verb 'to shampoo' is from the Indian/Hindi verb, 'champo/champna', to knead or press with the hands, to wash the hair. But whereas the English language style does not take the gerund form, the French language does.

If the word 'gerund' is causing you difficulty, don't let it! It is simply a technical term used by linguistic analysts within their speciality field. True, some nouns are gerunds and some are not, but, for all practical purposes this makes no difference whatsoever to English grammar usage. Most English speakers go through their entire lives not knowing what a gerund is, whilst happily using them in their everyday speech without any problems!

So the key thing about English language is to use the right words in the right form and at the right time, regardless of the technical 'names' for the words!