Frazz by Jef Mallett for June 05, 2012

And in and of itself, it exists. (Scolding).

The Russian word for “nonsense,” erunda (stress on the last letter), comes from the word “gerund.” The old Russian language did not have the idea of a verbal noun (like “scolding,” above). So when foreigners came to Russia from the West centuries ago, the natives thought they were speaking nonsense. They then Russified the Latin root-word, making it erunda. Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

Example of gerund and of present participle: “Pursuing girls can be fun.”

Visiting relatives can be annoying. The classic was “Flying planes can be dangerous”, but I haven’t heard anyone use it since 9/11.

But ‘time flying like an arrow’ and ‘fruit flies liking bananas’ both have examples of the present participle, not the gerund.

All the examples above are of present participles, not gerunds. Only in Caulfield’s sentence, “I got a minor scolding,” do we see a genuine gerund.

Redcaycei and simpsonfan2: Spelling is good to have in your tool kit along with grammar.

“endure”…

I would guess that Caulfield does stuff like this so he can get sent to the janitor to help, as “punishment” for his misbehavior. He is bored and if they don’t do something proactive with him, he will end up in jail or dead on the street from an overdose someday. Bored kids are heading for trouble.

OK—I’m still laughing over this one.

Musta been that heavy-duty grammar class I took for school a few years back …