Quoting from message
posted on 31 Jan 2005 by Colin Youngs
I would like to add:
Elaine Jones wrote in message ...
:Quoting from message
: posted on 31 Jan 2005 by John Hall
: My OED also calls "sitting"
: a noun, which surprised me. It's the present particle of the verb "to
: sit", which I would have thought made it a verb.
:When I was at school the term used was "gerund", it's now "verb-noun" - but
:still subject to some misuse, generally people will say "Do you mind me
:sitting here?" whereas it should be "Do you mind my sitting here?"
as would be with any other noun)
I am not sure that you always use the possessive with the gerund. You
would surely say, e.g., "Do you mind me smoking ?". "Do you mind my
smoking ?" would mean something else.
Actually I'd say "Do you mind if I smoke?" (Vision of Morticia Adams with
smoke seeping out)
I can't lay my hands on Usage and Abusage so resorted to Google:
In traditional grammar, any pronoun or noun that precedes a gerund should be
in the possessive case: I disapprove of his smoking; I resented Sarah's
taking my place. In practice, though, in present-day English most people use
the object form of pronouns: I disapprove of him smoking and do not inflect
nouns: I resented Sarah taking my place.This usage (which is sometimes termed
a fused participle) is perfectly acceptable in standard English, and indeed
it is probably preferable to using possessive forms, which can sound stilted
and cumbersome. © From the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia.
which supports both of us; I would use the "traditional grammar" when
writing a formal report etc.
:Then there's the "at one sitting" as mentioned by Colin which I think is
:really this gerund/verb-noun.
No. "Sitting" is a simple noun in this case - although obviously derived
from the verb originally. Compare it with "meeting" or "(human) being".
Yes - I'd forgotten that if a plural can be formed it's a simple noun.
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