1

Do you use adverbs to modify these v-ing words especially when they are the objects of the verbs?

Example:

I regret swimming hurriedly
**I regret hurried swimming.

And what about these two sentences:

I regret stamp-collecting
I regret collecting stamps

I regret unnecessary bomb-defusing.
I regret bomb-defusing unnecessarily?

Besides, when using these words, it still retains the verbal characteristics right? Like:

The house needs a careful cleaning

has the same meaning as:

The house needs carefully cleaning
The house needs to be cleaned carefully (SOMETHING like passive voice)

Catija
  • 25,400
  • 4
  • 63
  • 95
moyeea
  • 568
  • 6
  • 19
  • In this extract from a work by Quirk et al, (some of) the many different ways in which ing-forms are used in English are listed. Note that both 'Brown's deft painting of his daughter is a delight to watch' and 'Brown's deftly painting his daughter is a delight to watch' are grammatical (if very formal, at least for the second sentence). – Edwin Ashworth Jul 31 '16 at 20:58
  • Thanks very much for your help. Somebody has told me the first one is seldom used. Besides, could you please help me check if my cases are right or not? – moyeea Jul 31 '16 at 21:24

0 Answers0