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Today I heard a sentence:

Do you want more potatoes peeled.

But I have always used it as:

Do you want having more potatoes peeled.

Which one is grammartical? Please explain with examples.

Thanks in advance.

user100323
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  • Where did you learn that your second example with "having" is OK?. – BillJ Oct 15 '19 at 13:14
  • @FumbleFingers could you please explain with example. I'm a non native learner. – user100323 Oct 15 '19 at 13:21
  • This has been asked about before. One earlier question about the issue is What's the diffence between “I want you to go* to sleep” and “I want you going to sleep”* – FumbleFingers Oct 15 '19 at 13:24
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    Your first example (a concealed passive) is acceptable, Also acceptable is "Do you want more potatoes peeling?" But your example with "having" is completely ungrammatical because "want" does not license such gerund-participial complements. – BillJ Oct 15 '19 at 13:27
  • In unusual / contrived contexts, the continuous form can be idiomatically "okay". For example, When I get back from the pub I don't want you sitting up waiting for me. But strictly speaking that's probably just a slightly "reduced" form of underlying ...I don't want you to be* sitting up waiting for me.* – FumbleFingers Oct 15 '19 at 13:29
  • "Want" can licence certain gerund-participial complements, e.g. "I want them standing when the PM arrives" / "I don't want you bringing your dog with you". – BillJ Oct 15 '19 at 13:33
  • @BillJ: "Do you want more potatoes peeling?" suggests that peeling is done by potatoes, not to potatoes. "Do you want more potatoes peeled?" makes more sense for that reason. Or did you mean "Do you want more potato peeling?"? In that case, potato no longer is a noun but an adjective, and it roughly means ""Do you want more peeling of potatoes?" – MSalters Oct 15 '19 at 16:21
  • It doesn't suggest that at all. It’s a ‘concealed’ passive, where the natural interpretation is "Do you want more potatoes peeling (by someone)". "Do you want more potatoes peeled" is an alternative. In your last example, "potato-peeling" is a compound noun consisting of noun + deverbal noun in ing (cf. also "shop-lifting", "star-gazing", "town-planning" etc). I suggest you get your facts right. – BillJ Oct 16 '19 at 08:02

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