Is "go exercising" ungrammatical or non-standard?

Question

Friends,

I think the phrase "go exercise" is spoken in colloquial English. But I can still find the phrase "go exercising," even in Google books. Like the excerpt below:

I like to exercise, but if I'm stressed and I want to exercise, it's different than it used to be," she says. "Before, if I wanted to go exercising, it was out of anxiousness. It was not relaxing; it just made me worse. I think it's good to exercise, because the body needs to exercise, but not obsessively, and not perhaps in that moment when you are very stressed and anxious, like you're ready to run a marathon. For me, it's just walking with my dog. I do that a lot. And then I feel calm and relaxed.

Is this an American/British thing? Or is it plain wrong?

So presumably it would not be OK for her to "go shopping" either? — Hot Licks, Apr 10 '16 at 00:06
@HotLicks: Thanks! So the existence of "go shopping" means it's OK to say "go eating" instead of "go eat," right? — herisson, Apr 10 '16 at 00:23
Go swimming, go hiking, go sightseeing, but not go eating.....Hmmm — ab2, Apr 10 '16 at 00:39
@ab2 That sounds like a lot of food eaten, compared with then I ate. — Lawrence, Apr 10 '16 at 00:48
I think the wanted to go + -ing form puts the focus on the act, as opposed to contemplation of the act. — Lawrence, Apr 10 '16 at 00:50
You can say: "I enjoy eating out" but not "I went eating" or "I go eating". Eating is someting we all do, it's not an activity that we necessarily perform outdoors. Go ---> somewhere To go hunting, a person has to leave their house. To go swimming, a person has to go to a pool of water; to go shopping, a person has to enter into a shop or shopping mall. Go working out is perhaps more idiomatic. Does this help? — Mari-Lou A, Apr 10 '16 at 08:38
Hi, Mari-Lou A. To "go work out" is a good analog. But the AmE speaker at the "wordreference" Website didn't use "go working out." — yyfroy, Apr 10 '16 at 08:54

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 10 '16 at 01:27

"Go exercising" sort of "sounds wrong", but simply because it's more idiomatic to say "go exercise". Consider that "exercising" has a number of subcategories -- jogging, swimming, weight lifting, etc, so the word is rarely used. Whereas "shopping" doesn't have the corresponding "grocerying", and "clothing", "housing", et al, mean other things. So it's common to say "I'm going shopping", but not so common to say "I'm going exercising".

But there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying it. (Better say it than do it!!)

Thank you, Hot Licks. Except "idiomatic," can I say it's a habit? Or a custom? (which word should I use here in this context? a habit? a custom?) — yyfroy, Apr 10 '16 at 08:19

Is "go exercising" ungrammatical or non-standard?

1 Answers1