CHAPTER XXII
THE GERUND
The gerund, or infinitive in -ing, is substantive in its nature, for like the root infinitive it names the action or state asserted by the verb. It is not so easily identified in the sentence as the root infinitive, however, for in form it is precisely like the participle, from which it has to be distinguished entirely by its use.
The forms of the gerund are shown in the following examples:—
1. The transitive verb see:
Active—seeing, having seen.
Active progressive—having been seeing.
Passive—being seen, having been seen.
2. The intransitive verb rise:
Common form—rising, having risen.
Progressive form—having been rising.
The use of the gerund is almost entirely restricted to that of the noun. When found without adjuncts it does not materially differ from the noun; for example, Painting is a fine art. But usually the verb-nature of the gerund is prominent as well as its noun-use, for usually it is accompanied by a complement or adverbial modifiers; as, “The need of feeling responsible all the livelong day has been preached long enough in our New England.”—Wm. James. The gerund together with its adjuncts forms a gerund-phrase. It has certain advantages over the root infinitive. In many places it is preferable because it gives the idea of an action in progress. It is also employed in relation to some words where usage does not permit the root infinitive. Furthermore, its substantive nature comes out more prominently than that of the root infinitive, for like the noun it may be modified by an article or a possessive; thus, “Pascal said that most of the evils of life arose from man’s being unable to sit still in a room.”—Bagehot.
I. The gerund used as a noun.
1. Subject of a verb; as, “Lying in bed and listening to their dreary music had a pleasure in it.”—Holmes.
2. Object of a verb; as, “I remember being told that it was the sound of the waves.”—Holmes.
3. Objective complement; as, “If a child finds itself in want of anything it runs in and asks its father for it—does it call that doing its father a service?”—Ruskin. Here the gerund phrase helps to complete the verb does call and at the same time is an attribute of the direct object that.
4. Subjective complement; as, “The first of all English games is making money.”—Ruskin.
5. Appositive modifier; as, “I recommend this most faithful form of reading—learning by heart.”
6. Object of a preposition; as, “Nelson attributed all his success in life to having been a quarter of an hour before his time.” This is the commonest use of the gerund, for while the root infinitive may be used after very few prepositions, the gerund may be used after many.
7. Objective adverbial.—The adjective worth is usually followed by a noun that expresses a measure of value, answering the question worth how much? or worth what? It may be followed by a gerund answering the same question; as, “That is worth paying for.”—Warner.
II. The gerund used adjectively.—We find the gerund used adjectively in such expressions as sleeping-car, mourning-robes, dining-table, eating-apples. These gerunds seem at first like the participles in such expressions as singing-bird, shooting-star, barking-dog; but they are not like participles in meaning, as can be proved by changing them to equivalent elements of other kinds. A singing-bird is a bird that sings, but a sleeping-car is not a car that sleeps; it is a car for sleeping in.
Peculiar Constructions.—It cannot always be settled to one’s entire satisfaction whether a certain element is a participle or a gerund. In order to decide one must know just how a certain expression came to be, that is, of what earlier and older form it is a development. Sometimes it seems impossible to ascertain this. For instance, take the sentence, “Nanny has been busy ironing this evening.”—George Eliot. Is ironing a participle, and does the order of words in this sentence arise from a transposition of the sentence,—“Nanny, ironing, has been busy this evening”? Or is ironing a gerund, and is this sentence a parallel construction with, “Nanny has been busy at her ironing this evening”? Either interpretation of the sentence is a sensible one.
Another puzzling instance is found in the sentence,—“He was two weeks learning to use his flippers.”—Kipling. Is learning a part of the progressive verb-phrase was learning, and does the sentence mean, “He was learning to use his flippers during two weeks”? Or is learning a gerund, object of at understood, that is, is the sentence a parallel construction with this,—“You were a long time at it”? One cannot pronounce with certainty on this point, but must choose the construction that seems to him most reasonable.
Exercise 26
Dispose of all gerunds or gerund-phrases in the following sentences.
1. A serious percentage of books are not worth reading at all.—F. Harrison.
2. After a quarter of an hour’s chipping and hammering with very little result, he paused to rest.—J. Hawthorne.
3. The cat did not like being whipped, and she was still more annoyed at having been caught stealing.—Old Deccan Days.
4. Answering of this question is giving us the soul of the history of the man or nation.—Carlyle.
5. The only drawback to my rejoicing over the finishing of the first hoeing is that the garden now wants hoeing the second time.—Warner.
6. I wonder when Englishmen will learn these hospitable graces. They are worth learning.—Stevenson.
7. What was called governing them meant only wearing fine clothes and living on good fare at their expense.—Ruskin.
8. There are but three ways of living; by working, by stealing or by begging.—Froude.
9. He spent all the day roaming over the house.—Kipling.
10. I believe they find adorning the body a more profitable vocation than adorning the mind.—Miss Mitford.
11. She promised to befriend him and advised his disguising himself, lest the Magician should see him and turn him likewise into stone.—Old Deccan Days.
12. The buying a new coat is as to the cost of it a much more important matter of consideration to me than building a new Exchange is to you.—Ruskin.
13. She had been busy all the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.—Mrs. Gaskell.
14. It is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found, that is of consequence.—Lowell.
15. A perfectly truthful man, who loves truth for its own sake, is not contented with being as truthful as other people.—J. F. Clarke.
16. It’ll be no use their putting their heads down and saying, “Come up again, dear!”—Lewis Carroll.
Exercise 27
Analyze the following sentences:—
1. Miss Binson was, to quote her neighbors, a little too sharp-set.—Miss Jewett.
2. On she came, swaying, rocking, plunging, with a great whiteness wrapping her about like a cloud, and moving with her moving.—Hearn.
3. A mind must work to grow.—C. W. Eliot.
4. Everybody loves to hear of strange cases; people are eager to tell the doctor of the wonderful cures they have heard of; they want to know what is the matter with somebody or other who is said to be suffering from a complication of diseases, and above all to get a hard name, Greek or Latin, for some complaint which sounds altogether too commonplace in plain English.—Holmes.
5. And at the same time he hated having to break with old associations, and to part from anything to which he had been long accustomed.—Ainger.
6. It paused there an instant, with its fore quarters in the doorway, one fore foot raised, the end of its long tail waving.—J. L. Allen.
7. To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is power.—MacDonald.
8. The sergeants, seeing these things, told him secrets generally hid from young officers.—Kipling.
9. Children learn to speak by watching the lips and catching the words of those who know how already.—Lowell.
10. Strength of will is the power to resist, to persist, to endure, to attack, to conquer obstacles, to snatch success from the jaws of death and despair.—J. F. Clarke.
11. The waves of yesterday are gone today; and the calm of today will be tumultuous tomorrow.—Beecher.
12. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in this life.—De Quincey.
13. The city seems to burst into song with the advent of these golden days and silver nights.—Howells.
14. To tell the truth, the day was so fine that he regretted going in-doors.—A. S. Hardy.
15. It (education) meant the leading along the baby till he became the quick, honest, and fearless boy.—Hale.
16. The potato, usually planted in the vegetable mold left by recently exterminated forests, yielded its edible tubers with a bounteous profusion unknown to the husbandry of our day.—Greeley.
17. Born in the country he was ignorant as a sign-post of what came out of the soil.—J. T. Fields.
18. It is a great deal better to live a holy life than to talk about it.—Moody.
19. An hour’s reading of these newspaper paragraphs made a boy’s heart sick within him and caused a resolve to shoot up in it that he would turn him right about and classify him in future with quite a different order of boys.—Annie Preston.
20. He was never known to laugh.—Irving.
21. He must have had rather dull feelings not to have looked forward with some interest to her entrance into the room.—George Eliot.
22. The strength of the British Empire lies in the strength of character of the individual Englishman taken all alone by himself.—Wm. James.
23. For a time he was afraid of being dropped; then he grew angry, but he knew better than to struggle; and then he began to think.—Kipling.
24. Artists, poets, and musicians are apt to be irritable.—J. F. Clarke.
25. The best way to put boyishness to shame is to foster scholarship and manliness.—C. W. Eliot.
26. At any rate, I used to hide my eyes from the sloops and schooners that were wont to lie at the end of the bridge.—Holmes.
27. We were dismayed to behold the injured husband and his abandoned foe playfully scuffling behind the scenes.—Howells.
28. He was always being cured without improving his health.—Stephen.
29. What distinguishes the Norseman above other nations is, generally speaking, an indestructible self-respect and force of individuality.—Boyesen.
30. He was too shackled with weakness to cry out, to stand up.—J. L. Allen.
31. He had spent half his youth with an older brother hunting horses in Texas.—Hale.
32. Those who work deserve to eat; those who do not work deserve to starve.—Froude.
33. At present the penny was doubly dear to him, having been long lost and lately found.—Barrie.
34. Sunday is coming to stand for perspiration, not inspiration.—Hillis.
35. The art of knowing when one is needed is more difficult than that of helping.—A. S. Hardy.
36. I cannot but think that the tennis and tramping and skating habits and the bicycle craze, which are so rapidly extending among our dear sisters and daughters in this country, are going also to lead to a sounder and heartier moral tone, which will send its tonic breath through all our American life.—Wm. James.