What is a gerund?

what is a gerund?
without looking it up

the ing form of the verb

saged

Do you object to my wanting of your cum?

you cheated.

You got me OP

wrong retard

a gerund is a noun referring to the act of a verb. often has ing in it but ing is a tense they don't actually have anything to do with each other.

"Crying" in TCoL49 is a gerund.

the present participle form of a verb functioning as a noun

>present participle

Must it be? What about "The Rape of Nanking?"

>looking
is a gerund; it's a verbal noun of that form

That's the present participle of the The Rape of Nank

No seriously though, the way I learned it is that a gerund does have to be the present participle. Something like "run" in "I'm going for a run" would be a nominalized verb or a nominalization or some shit like that. I don't remember the exact term.

thanks so much for contributing

...

what's with the passive aggression

The gerund is the direct and productive nominal form of a verb, refering to the action or state itself. In English this is formed by the stem + -ing, identical in form to the present (active) participle ('sing' -> 'singing'). In Latin the gerund is a neuter noun, identical to the infinitive in the nominative (and accusative, presumably, IIRC), but formed from the stem + 'nd' + 2nd declension case ending in the (other) oblique cases: 'canare, canandi...'
It's not the present participle. It's just identical in form to it.

IT'S HAP --

>It's not the present participle. It's just identical in form to it.
prove it

that shit where you take a verb in its "-ing" form and treat it like a quasi-noun

A gerund is used as a noun, whereas a participle is used as a verb
For example
>Messing around with this sit is messing with your brain
On the one hand, 'messing' is being used as a noun so it's a gerund, but on the other hand 'messing' is part of the verb and is a participle

I would say that a gerund is a participle functioning as a noun. Participle is a form not a function, I don't care what Grammar Girl says

A verb nouning

Participles work as adjectives. Gerunds only as nouns.