Why is the finished product called 'a building' when it is long built? It could be a thousand years old but it's still a 'building' though the process of building it is ended.
I disagree. A gerund is certainly a verb turned into a noun, but its meaning is "the act of...", which is not the case with "building" used to describe a structure. An example of a gerund using the verb "to build" is:
The building of the highway took longer than anticipated.
Posts: 17241 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
It seems to me that "building" can mean "that which is built", and not just "the act of building."
Other examples: One can speak of:
"The writings of Aristotle..." "The spanking that the child received last year..." "The making of the movie..." etc. Isn't that the same? Doesn't it make sense?
Posts: 1991 | Location: U.S. | Registered: 06-03-02
The answer to this jokey question is a bit more technical than at first appearing, isn't it? Had me wondering about 'gerunds' in English .
I wasn't aware of the use of the term gerund in English grammar but it makes sense. It is borrowed from Latin grammar: addendum and memorandum are both true Latin gerunds or gerundives which we have taken into English.A gerundive is the adjectival form and carries the sense of obligation or need. So a memorandum is 'something which needs remembering/ must be remembered' and an addendum is 'something which needs adding/ must be added to' .
The word 'building' can be a gerund ( or a present participle, come to that) or a noun. And in this example: 'The church is an old building' it is just a simple noun, not a gerund.
It just happens that in Middle English we formed a noun 'building' by taking a verb stem, build', and adding '-ing' to it. We formed another noun by adding -er, making 'builder'. We formed yet another by using just 'build' as in 'His strong build was useful in wrestling'.And coincidentally the present participle is also 'building'.
The confusion is caused by the -ing ending being the same for the gerund:" Building is necessary here" or DG's "The building of the highway took longer.." and the simple noun "It is a big building" and the participle "You are building here".In Latin we'd have no such problem. Were there a Latin verb stem ' build' then 'to build' could be 'buildare', the gerund would be 'buildandum', the participle 'buildans' and the simple noun perhaps 'buildes'.
There are other examples, like "a painting" and "a meeting". Could they have persisted because, although any process involved may have finished long since, the noun did involve significant action - when we say the word we can clearly imagine people doing (or having done) something, in a way we can't with 'car' or 'house', for example?
"Morn" is an old word, contracted from the earlier Middle English "morwen", apparently. We moderns tacked the 'ing' on. I wonder why. Originally it meant the time just before sunrise; could it be something about the action of dawning - the sun rising? etymonline.com
'Even' is an older noun, too. 'Evening' came from a verb, aefnung.
build O.E. byldan "construct a house," verb form of bold "house," from P.Gmc. *buthlam, from PIE base *bhu- "dwell." Rare in O.E., in M.E. it won out over more common O.E. timbran. Modern spelling is unexplained. Building "a structure" is from 1297.
I see how byldan could become building, especially at that time in the history of English. That does not mean that's how the word was formed, just that there is a striking similarity.
Posts: 17241 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
What about 'a talking to'? As in, "She gave him a real talking to".
It seems to me (although I'm not sure) that this is a recent creation of a noun from a gerund - filling a need not met by the nouns 'talk' (which means an academic lecture) or 'row' (which could mean a two-way verbal fight).
'Scaffolding' is interesting. The 'ing' seems to be there to differentiate the raised platforms for construction workers from the things people are hanged from.
I hate when this happens. I really like the site that NewNickname provided, Online Etymology Dictionary. I found it very interesting and informative. Then I saw this:
moon (v.)
1601, "to expose to moonlight;" later "idle about" (1836), "move listlessly" (1848), probably on notion of being moon struck, which is attested from 1674; cf. Gk. selenobletos. The meaning "to flash the buttocks" is first recorded 1968, U.S. student slang, from moon (n.) "buttocks" (1756), "probably from the idea of pale circularity" [Ayto]. See moon (n.).
Some of us are old enough to realize that "moon" - to flash the buttocks" is certainly older than 1968, both in spoken and written English.
Posts: 17241 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
(1)Forming nouns usually from verbs, occasionally by analogy from nouns or adverbs, denoting a) verbal action, as in 'fighting', 'swearing', 'blackberrying', or an instance of it, an act (with plural -ings) , as 'wedding', 'outing'; also an occupation or skill, as 'banking', 'glassblowing' b) a thing resulting from or produced by an action, as 'building', 'carving'; also, a thing involved in an action or process as 'covering'; c) the things, material or substance involved in a process or action as 'bedding', 'clothing', 'flooring'; frequently from nouns without any corresponding verb, as 'sacking', 'scaffolding'
2) forming the gerund of verbs, i.e. a noun which is a distinct part of the verb and retains certain of its functions especially those of governing an object and being qualified by an adverb instead of by an adjective, as 'I love reading poetry' (= the reading of poetry ); 'the habit of speaking loosely ' (=loose speaking). Developed from (1) [ above:nouns formed from verbs] initially perhaps in imitation of Latin gerund, in the late C14 and not found in other Germanic languages.
In Old English this ending was -ung = Old Saxon -unga.
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