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I was told that "during cleaning the room" was not a correct expression. I don't see why. Could you explain the reason the expression is worng? I am curious about the correct usage of "during"

One mentioned in a comment that "while cleaning the room" is a common expression.

Is it ok for me to understand that "during + noun" is acceptable and "during + gerund" is not acceptable?

Mason
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    What context are you using it in? – alphabet Jul 30 '23 at 02:56
  • I figure that the expression itself is wrong regardless of the context. That's what I was told. –  Jul 30 '23 at 03:43
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    Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking. –  Jul 30 '23 at 04:01
  • "while cleaning the room" seems more idiomatic. There's no reason, it's just what people say. – Barmar Jul 30 '23 at 04:53
  • Thank you for clarifying it. –  Jul 30 '23 at 05:37
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    "During" does not license gerund-participial clauses as complement, but it does allow NPs. Thus, you can say "during [the cleaning of the room]". – BillJ Jul 30 '23 at 06:07
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    Close? Really? Because you can’t explain why? – Xanne Jul 30 '23 at 07:26
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    What @BillJ said. It should probably be during the* cleaning of the room. Same as [during the changing of the guard*](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22during+the+changing+of+the+guard%22) – FumbleFingers Jul 30 '23 at 10:24

3 Answers3

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There is a difference between a noun ending in -ing heading a noun phrase and a verb ending in -ing heading a gerund-participial clause. The noun phrase is allowed by during while the gerund-participial is not.

Since the example given includes an object (the room) in the phrase headed by cleaning, it is clearly a gerund-participial clause, and thus not allowed by during.

Searching the Corpus of Contemporary American English for the string

. During *ing ,

produces 164 hits, while searching for

. During *ing the

produces zero hits where the... is an object.

The former are nouns as they may be modified by adjectives, but not adverbs.

During basic training,

During recent testing,

During major healing,

etc.

Compare:

During light cleaning... [acceptable]

During light cleaning the attic... [unacceptable]

While lightly cleaning the attic... [acceptable]

DW256
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During fumigation of the room

While fumigating the room.

We don't say "during fumigating the room" because during wants a noun or noun-phrase complement whose action or existence occurs over time.

during the game

during interrogation of the suspect

And even though -ing forms can function as nominals, when you include a direct object and emphasize the time-aspect, as during does, it makes them act like verbs, and we use while with continuous verbs.

But what about a single word like sleeping? There's no direct object there. Can we say "during sleeping"? No, we say "while sleeping" or "during sleep". If you emphasize the time-aspect, the word acts like a verb. So maybe all that is needed to turn the -ing form into a verb is to emphasize the time-aspect. At least when the verb is intransitive.

You could counteract this emphasis with transitives by using an article or adjective, as that pulls the word back into noun territory:

During the fumigating, wear a mask.

During extended fumigating, wear a diving suit.

Though those might sound a tad off to a some percentage of speakers when there is a frequently used abstract noun available as is the case with fumigation.

You can also "convert" or "cast" the -ing form to a noun with an attribute, either before the word or as a complement that attaches the attribute back to the head noun:

During tank cleaning, wear goggles.

During cleaning of the tank, wear goggles.

TimR on some device
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  • Hello. Tim. DW256 has said all this, haven't they? – Edwin Ashworth Jul 30 '23 at 13:52
  • @EdwinAshworth: No, not all this, and when I started typing it, it was early AM here and there were no answers yet; I just didn't save my answer right away. And while I was out riding my bike, I thought of something else to add, which I will do in a moment. – TimR on some device Jul 30 '23 at 16:26
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Oxford Learners
Gerund: ​a noun in the form of the present participle of a verb (that is, ending in -ing)
for example: travelling in the sentence I preferred travelling alone.

According to Google ngram, usage use of during+gerund has increased during the last century, particularly in the last half. Walking, running, eating and thinking all show this pattern. To take only one example of many, we have:

Teach me physiology
During breathing, the contraction and relaxation of muscles acts to change the volume of the thoracic cavity.

Such usage is concise, preferable to its long-winded avoidance such as “during the action of breathing”.

The idea that the usage is “wrong” may stem from prescriptive nineteenth century grammarians but has been overtaken by usage and conciseness. It is now neither helpful nor useful.

Anton
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    In "I preferred travelling alone", "travelling is a verb, not a noun. This example is called a catenative construction, where "prefer" is a catenative verb with the non-finite subordinate clause "travelling alone" as its catenative complement. – BillJ Jul 30 '23 at 08:32
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    @BillJ please direct your criticism at the Oxford Learners site and niot at my reference to it. – Anton Jul 30 '23 at 08:42
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    @Anton It is fair, though, to level criticism at users who get grammar information from dictionaries. And especially if those dictionaries give completely topsy-turvy analyses which are confusing and misleading for learners, it is essential that users explain why those analyses are wrong and muddleheaded under the posts that they appear in, and downvote them. Oxford dictionaries is misleading, self-contradictory and wrong here. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jul 30 '23 at 10:26
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    How did your search on Google Ngram show that "during + gerund" has increased over the last century? – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jul 30 '23 at 10:28
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    There’s nothing wrong with ‘during breathing’, because breathing is a noun there. ‘During lunch’ and ‘during eating’ are also both fine (though ‘while eating’ would be more common), but ‘during eating lunch’ is ungrammatical. This has nothing to do with 19th-century prescriptivism, it’s just every bit as wrong as ‘while lunch’ is. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 30 '23 at 11:13
  • Many native speakers would find during breathing ungrammatical, which is to say, no one they know would say it, and nothing they've read or would be likely to read would use that locution. These uses are marginal. – TimR on some device Jul 30 '23 at 18:41
  • One of the problems with Google ngram is that it often counts the same attestation multiple times. The graphs are often the result of such artefacts. – TimR on some device Jul 30 '23 at 18:46