Quote:Setanta: I think it has gotten personal for JTT, Pete,
It hasn't become personal at all, Setanta. I have clearly pointed up a couple of these falsehoods that you, with your dissembling, have tried desperately to avoid. That's what this thread is about.
I've brought them forward so you don't have to backtrack to the previous page.
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Setanta:
As for feel and feeling, the gerund is usually used to indicate an ongoing condition. If the plumber is still attempting to correct a leak, one would say: The plumber is seeing to the leak. Once the problem were correct, one would say: The plumber saw to the leak. If the problem has not yet been addressed, on might say: We need a plumber to see to that leak.
JTT: The pertinent portions;
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1) As for feel and feeling, the gerund is usually used to indicate an ongoing condition.
The plumber is seeing to the leak.
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JTT:
'seeing' is not a gerund, Setanta and the present progressive structure is not "used to indicate an ongoing condition".
*The plumber is seeing to leaks for ten years now.*
[asterisks denote an ungrammatical structure]
I believe this type of structure works for German but it doesn't for English. Maybe German is what you had in mind.
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"This breakdown is a good illustration of one of the main scandals of the language mavens: they show lapses in elementary problems of grammatical analysis, like figuring out the part-of-speech category of a word." [S Pinker]
This is the person, Pete, who you're happy to see back, whose opinions you value. For what possible reason? That's a real question.
