WHAT’s A GERUND? WHAT’s a DIRTY GERUND?
Gerunds are one of three kinds of verbals. Verbals are verbs that function as another part of speech. The gerund always functions as a noun. The participle, a verbal that always acts as an adjective, has already been covered. The infinitive will be covered next.
Verbals retain the qualities of a verb even while acting as nouns, adjectives and adverbs. In other words, verbals can have direct objects, predicate nouns, or predicate adjectives (any of the three verb complements) even though they are not functioning as verbs. Verbals, then, fall into the same patterns as sentences and clauses.
A gerund always ends in ing. It also always functions as a noun. This means that all gerunds will act as subjects of a sentence, objects of prepositions, predicate nouns, or direct objects.
Examples Bertha enjoys hiking.
Hiking is the gerund.
A “Dirty Gerund?” – well……. use your imagination!!! Johnny Q. Poetry enjoys &$#%^ing
