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Others call these words modernized forms of the Anglo-Saxon _Verbal Nouns_
in _-ung_, _-ing_. But this derivation of them encounters the stubborn fact
that those verbal nouns never were compound, and never were or could be
followed by objects. These words, on the contrary, are compound, as we have
seen, and have objects. That they are from nouns in _-ung_ is otherwise,
and almost for the same reasons, as incredible as that they are from
infinitives in _-an_.
Others call these words _Gerunds_. A gerund in Latin is a simple form of
the verb in the active voice, never found in the nominative, and never in
the accusative (objective) after a verb. A gerund in Anglo-Saxon is a
simple form of the verb in the active voice--the dative case of the
infinitive merely--used mainly to indicate purpose, and always preceded by
the preposition _to_. To call these words in question gerunds is to stretch
the term _gerund_ immensely beyond its meaning in Anglo-Saxon, and make it
cover words which sometimes (1) are highly compounded; sometimes (2) are
used in the passive voice; sometimes (3) follow other prepositions than
_to_; sometimes (4) do not follow any preposition; sometimes (5) are
objects of verbs; sometimes (6) are subjects of verbs; sometimes (7) are
modified by _the_; sometimes (8) are modified by a noun or pronoun in the
possessive; and generally (9) do not indicate purpose.
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