These exercises present sentences containing unsatisfactory instances of the common grammatical construction, "noun plus -ing". First, locate the problem; then, think of a solution that is grammatical. Hit the three "shows" at the right and you'll be taken step by step through ways of fixing it; try to think of the answers first.
- Explanation
This construction—also known as "with" plus [noun] plus -ing—is often grammatically ambiguous, where the "-ing" phrase could either qualify the noun (adjectival) or be part of a possessive construction in which the noun "owns" the action. These two constructions seem to have become confused in modern English; the result is that "noun plus -ing" is often used clumsily. The context and wording varies with respect to how well you can get away with it (even Jane Austen "gets away with it" on occasion!). "Noun plus -ing" can be seen in:
- "I object to him being there", in which "him" is the noun. We need to stop and think before using it, given that it can almost always be replaced with a neater construction.
- "Us going to the movies tomorrow? I doubt it." In a formal register, the possessive is required: "Our going to ...". Or just drop the first word if it's clear in the context.
However, .... a quite acceptable usage is "The archaeological finds included silver pendants of females bearing drinking horns." Here, "bearing drinking horns" looks like some kind of adjectival phrase, qualifying females. Perhaps this is the root of the problem: two quite different grammatical structures that have become confused.
The 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (2008), p. 193, labels the "with + noun + -ing" construction as "slovenly", although it fails to analyse why this is so or to distinguish between the slovenly and the ungrammatical. CMOS gives the example "They all went to the beach with me being left to wash the dishes", but does not take the opportunity of providing a simple alternative—perhaps, "They all went to the beach leaving me to wash the dishes".
Ways of avoiding the construction. There are several ways of avoiding "noun + -ing", such as by making the noun a possessive: "I object to his being there", or more formally, "I object to his presence (there)". Or you could use a more substantial rewording: "I object to the fact that he's there"; however, most folk would find this ungainly, and it's hard to go against that. Often, "noun plus-ing" is introduced by "with", as a clumsy connector with the previous text: ("We can't do much, with him being there".) Getting rid of "with" can be part of your rewording. "With" is clumsy because it fails to clarify the relationship between the preceding and subsequent text that is being attempted to be linked: additive, contrastive or causal? Sometimes the readers can work it out, although usually with a smidgeon of extra work; sometimes it's difficult or impossible to know, and you just slide over it with a slight sense of fuzziness.
Self-help writing tutorials:
More discussion here.
Suzuki
The book starts as a chronological autobiography, with Suzuki recounting his childhood.
Hint
- "With" is usually a bad connector; you can tackle that problem and fix the noun + -ing problem at the same time.
The book starts as a chronological autobiography in which Suzuki recounts his childhood.
Note
- "In which" allows us to both dispense with clumsy "with", connecting the subsequent clause with the previous clause properly, and to change the noun + -ing into a grammatical structure.
Characters of Carnivàle
Season 2 concludes with Ben setting out to confront Brother Justin in California.
Hint
- "With" is fine here, since it's not used as a connector; the noun + -ing problem can be tackled in more than one way.
Canadian dollar
Some business in Canada is transacted in US dollars, despite US currency not being legal tender.
Hint
- Pretty clumsy, isn't it. Try including "is" somewhere after the comma.
Some business in Canada is transacted in US dollars, despite the fact that US currency is not legal tender.
Note
- We've had to resort to "the fact that", which is deprecated by many editors as tired and wordy.
- But wait, we have a better idea:
Some business in Canada is transacted in US dollars, even though US currency is not legal tender.
Is that better?
Convoy GP55
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
They remembered that Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said many great films had been made from bad novels but few great films from good novels.
Note
- In the solution, we've removed the second "that" to avoid "that ... that".
List of brain tumor patients
The lifetime risk of developing brain cancer for someone born in 2009 is 0.60%.
Or:
For someone born in 2009, the lifetime risk of developing brain cancer is 0.60%.
2004 Summer Olympics medal count
Doping scandals have resulted in the stripping of medals from a number of athletes.
Note
- Alternatively: "Doping scandals have resulted in a number of athletes' being stripped of their medals"—this is unusual nowadays, but nevertheless efficient and grammatical.
Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway
The inspiration for the promoters was the initial success of the City & South London Railway, which had seen large passenger numbers using its trains in its first year of operation.
Hint
- Some lateral thinking might lead to the best solution: the "its ... its ..." problem can be solved at the same time.
The inspiration for the promoters was the initial success of the City & South London Railway, which had seen large passenger numbers using its trains in its first year of operation.
Notes
- The removal of three redundant words kills two birds with one keystroke. In another context, it might have worked to replace the problematic "using" with "on".
- You could reword it with only a slight change of meaning: "... which had seen many passengers in the first year of operation." After all, in this context what else would "passengers" be riding?
SummerSlam (2007)
The organisers had originally planned a confrontation between the cast of the Jackass TV series and Umaga, and the conclusion of the feud in a match at SummerSlam.
Note
- Here, we've simply nominalised the problem; there may be other solutions.
Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)
Taylor made a point of avoiding the use of profanity, in response to people claiming that he relied on it.
- Rewording is the best option, since "people's claiming" is ... yucky. The solution is dead easy—what is redundant?
Taylor made a point of avoiding the use of profanity, in response to claims that he relied on it.
- Who else would make claims but people?
History of Bradford City A.F.C.
Less than two months after the Club's success, Jewell left to join Sheffield, with his assistant Chris Hutchings replacing him.
- Think of using a different form of the word "replacing" and shifting it to a little after the comma.
Less than two months after the Club's success, Jewell left to join Sheffield, to be replaced by his assistant, Chris Hutchings.
- It's more elegant, avoids the grammatical glitch, but changes the meaning ever so slightly. How? The emphasis is now subtly shifted towards Chris Hutchings. If that's not OK, think of some other way of rewording.
- Perhaps breaking the sentence into two might do. "Less than two months after the Club's success, Jewell left to join Sheffield. His assistant, Chris Hutchings, replaced him as manager."
Operation Cobra
The original plan for the Normandy campaign envisioned strong offensive efforts in both sectors, with Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey's British Second Army securing Caen and the area south of it, and General Omar Bradley's United States First Army "wheeling round" to the Loire.
- "In which" is probably the best solution. How is it done?
"The original plan for the Normandy campaign envisioned strong offensive efforts in both sectors, in which Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey's British Second Army would secure Caen and the area south of it, and General Omar Bradley's United States First Army would "wheel round" to the Loire.
- The bonus is that the conditional-future mood/tense is explicit in the two "woulds".
Joel Selwood
British Birds Rarities Committee
The Sydney Morning Herald
A newspaper not known for good sub-editing. This example comes not from our article on the SMH, but direct from an opinion piece in the 28 August 2009 edition of the broadsheet.
These exercises present sentences containing unsatisfactory instances of the common grammatical construction, "noun plus -ing". First, locate the problem; then, think of a solution that is grammatical. Hit the three "shows" at the right and you'll be taken step by step through ways of fixing it; try to think of the answers first.
- Explanation
This construction—also known as "with" plus [noun] plus -ing—is often grammatically ambiguous, where the "-ing" phrase could either qualify the noun (adjectival) or be part of a possessive construction in which the noun "owns" the action. These two constructions seem to have become confused in modern English; the result is that "noun plus -ing" is often used clumsily. The context and wording varies with respect to how well you can get away with it (even Jane Austen "gets away with it" on occasion!). "Noun plus -ing" can be seen in:
- "I object to him being there", in which "him" is the noun. We need to stop and think before using it, given that it can almost always be replaced with a neater construction.
- "Us going to the movies tomorrow? I doubt it." In a formal register, the possessive is required: "Our going to ...". Or just drop the first word if it's clear in the context.
However, .... a quite acceptable usage is "The archaeological finds included silver pendants of females bearing drinking horns." Here, "bearing drinking horns" looks like some kind of adjectival phrase, qualifying females. Perhaps this is the root of the problem: two quite different grammatical structures that have become confused.
The 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (2008), p. 193, labels the "with + noun + -ing" construction as "slovenly", although it fails to analyse why this is so or to distinguish between the slovenly and the ungrammatical. CMOS gives the example "They all went to the beach with me being left to wash the dishes", but does not take the opportunity of providing a simple alternative—perhaps, "They all went to the beach leaving me to wash the dishes".
Ways of avoiding the construction. There are several ways of avoiding "noun + -ing", such as by making the noun a possessive: "I object to his being there", or more formally, "I object to his presence (there)". Or you could use a more substantial rewording: "I object to the fact that he's there"; however, most folk would find this ungainly, and it's hard to go against that. Often, "noun plus-ing" is introduced by "with", as a clumsy connector with the previous text: ("We can't do much, with him being there".) Getting rid of "with" can be part of your rewording. "With" is clumsy because it fails to clarify the relationship between the preceding and subsequent text that is being attempted to be linked: additive, contrastive or causal? Sometimes the readers can work it out, although usually with a smidgeon of extra work; sometimes it's difficult or impossible to know, and you just slide over it with a slight sense of fuzziness.
Self-help writing tutorials:
More discussion here.
Suzuki
The book starts as a chronological autobiography, with Suzuki recounting his childhood.
Hint
- "With" is usually a bad connector; you can tackle that problem and fix the noun + -ing problem at the same time.
The book starts as a chronological autobiography in which Suzuki recounts his childhood.
Note
- "In which" allows us to both dispense with clumsy "with", connecting the subsequent clause with the previous clause properly, and to change the noun + -ing into a grammatical structure.
Characters of Carnivàle
Season 2 concludes with Ben setting out to confront Brother Justin in California.
Hint
- "With" is fine here, since it's not used as a connector; the noun + -ing problem can be tackled in more than one way.
Canadian dollar
Some business in Canada is transacted in US dollars, despite US currency not being legal tender.
Hint
- Pretty clumsy, isn't it. Try including "is" somewhere after the comma.
Some business in Canada is transacted in US dollars, despite the fact that US currency is not legal tender.
Note
- We've had to resort to "the fact that", which is deprecated by many editors as tired and wordy.
- But wait, we have a better idea:
Some business in Canada is transacted in US dollars, even though US currency is not legal tender.
Is that better?
Convoy GP55
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
They remembered that Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said many great films had been made from bad novels but few great films from good novels.
Note
- In the solution, we've removed the second "that" to avoid "that ... that".
List of brain tumor patients
The lifetime risk of developing brain cancer for someone born in 2009 is 0.60%.
Or:
For someone born in 2009, the lifetime risk of developing brain cancer is 0.60%.
2004 Summer Olympics medal count
Doping scandals have resulted in the stripping of medals from a number of athletes.
Note
- Alternatively: "Doping scandals have resulted in a number of athletes' being stripped of their medals"—this is unusual nowadays, but nevertheless efficient and grammatical.
Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway
The inspiration for the promoters was the initial success of the City & South London Railway, which had seen large passenger numbers using its trains in its first year of operation.
Hint
- Some lateral thinking might lead to the best solution: the "its ... its ..." problem can be solved at the same time.
The inspiration for the promoters was the initial success of the City & South London Railway, which had seen large passenger numbers using its trains in its first year of operation.
Notes
- The removal of three redundant words kills two birds with one keystroke. In another context, it might have worked to replace the problematic "using" with "on".
- You could reword it with only a slight change of meaning: "... which had seen many passengers in the first year of operation." After all, in this context what else would "passengers" be riding?
SummerSlam (2007)
The organisers had originally planned a confrontation between the cast of the Jackass TV series and Umaga, and the conclusion of the feud in a match at SummerSlam.
Note
- Here, we've simply nominalised the problem; there may be other solutions.
Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)
Taylor made a point of avoiding the use of profanity, in response to people claiming that he relied on it.
- Rewording is the best option, since "people's claiming" is ... yucky. The solution is dead easy—what is redundant?
Taylor made a point of avoiding the use of profanity, in response to claims that he relied on it.
- Who else would make claims but people?
History of Bradford City A.F.C.
Less than two months after the Club's success, Jewell left to join Sheffield, with his assistant Chris Hutchings replacing him.
- Think of using a different form of the word "replacing" and shifting it to a little after the comma.
Less than two months after the Club's success, Jewell left to join Sheffield, to be replaced by his assistant, Chris Hutchings.
- It's more elegant, avoids the grammatical glitch, but changes the meaning ever so slightly. How? The emphasis is now subtly shifted towards Chris Hutchings. If that's not OK, think of some other way of rewording.
- Perhaps breaking the sentence into two might do. "Less than two months after the Club's success, Jewell left to join Sheffield. His assistant, Chris Hutchings, replaced him as manager."
Operation Cobra
The original plan for the Normandy campaign envisioned strong offensive efforts in both sectors, with Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey's British Second Army securing Caen and the area south of it, and General Omar Bradley's United States First Army "wheeling round" to the Loire.
- "In which" is probably the best solution. How is it done?
"The original plan for the Normandy campaign envisioned strong offensive efforts in both sectors, in which Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey's British Second Army would secure Caen and the area south of it, and General Omar Bradley's United States First Army would "wheel round" to the Loire.
- The bonus is that the conditional-future mood/tense is explicit in the two "woulds".
Joel Selwood
British Birds Rarities Committee
The Sydney Morning Herald
A newspaper not known for good sub-editing. This example comes not from our article on the SMH, but direct from an opinion piece in the 28 August 2009 edition of the broadsheet.