User:Ricardiana/grammar
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The Great Noun + -ing Debate
Here's a boring sentence for you: "All we are assuming about the Wiener-Kuratowski implementation is that x=(y, z) is stratified, with x being given a type index two greater than the index assigned to y and z."[1]
The writer of that sentence will not ride off on the Stallion of Literary Triumph, it's true, but the sentence at least seems harmless, does it not? Ah. And yet here on Wikipedia it is likely to be called ungrammatical, even "trashy." And therein lies a tale.
My interest in this problem started with this sentence, which I wrote for the article on The Hardy Boys: "The characters were portrayed as in their early 20s, with Frank working as a reporter and Joe still in college." That sentence won't win any prizes either, but I assumed it was grammatical. During a peer review, however, I was told not so - that it violated the rule of "noun plus -ing."
When I asked around about this rule, here on Wikipedia and elsewhere, I discovered that no one could name any book or text that discussed it. I therefore set about doing some research. The result was the discovery of a debate that has actually been quite heated. I'll outline that debate below; as you will see, there is no authoritative consensus on the subject.
Because there's no consensus, I submit that the usage should not be outlawed here. In any case, I hope the following little review will give people some useful background on the subject.