Summary
Among the most evasive birds in the linguistic aviary is the Jocular Gerund, recently sighted in this column. It casts off apostrophes as if it were shedding feathers. It changes its colors from sentence to sentence. Its call is more a snicker than a song. All this fowl play drives professional grammarians to drink. Consider the species:
From The New York Times: "The confirmation precedents forcefully support the propriety of a nominee declining to spell out how he or she would rule on a specific case."See the full content of this document
Extract
In Hot Pursuit of the Two-Toned Gerund
From The Washington Post, quoting a Washington lawyer: "I can remember discussions at the Law Review, but I don't remember John being involved."
From an A...See the full content of this document
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