Jensens & Gerunds
This is a picture of my sons visiting the gravesite of my grandparents and great
grandmother in Munich, Germany in 2012.


My boys are Jensens. That is what everyone calls them, and that is what
is on their identification papers.
However, they inherited some characteristics from their ancestors, the
Schalls, even though we do not call them Schalls. (For example, Carl had a
red tint to his hair that everyone said came from the Schalls, not the
Jensens.)
We could say the same thing about gerunds!
 Gerunds are nouns. That is how they should always be identified.
 However, their ancestors were verbs; that is their heritage. And because
of that heritage, they have two special characteristics that they inherited
from verbs:
S
o/ger
1. Like verbs, gerunds can take objects: Reading books is interesting.
n
2. Like verbs, gerunds can be modified by adverbs:
S
Reading quickly is difficult.
n
adv
v
adj
n
v
adj