GERUNDS

272. The gerund is like the participle in form, and like a noun in use.
The participle has been called an adjectival verbal; the gerund may be called a noun verbal. While the gerund expresses action, it has several attributes of a noun,—it may be governed as a noun; it may be the subject of a verb, or the object of a verb or a preposition; it is often preceded by the definite article; it is frequently modified by a possessive noun or pronoun.
Distinguished from participle and verbal noun.
273. It differs from the participle in being always used as a noun: it never belongs to or limits a noun.
It differs from the verbal noun in having the property of governing a noun (which the verbal noun has not) and of expressing action (the verbal noun merely names an action, Sec. II).
The following are examples of the uses of the gerund:—
(1) Subject: “The taking of means not to see another morning had all day absorbed every energy;” “Certainly dueling is bad, and has been put down.”
(2) Object: (a) “Our culture therefore must not omit the arming of the man.” (b) “Nobody cares forplanting the poor fungus;” “I announce the good of being interpenetrated by the mind that made nature;” “The guilt of having been cured of the palsy by a Jewish maiden.”
(3) Governing and Governed: “We are far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use,” also (2, b), above; “He could embellish the characters with new traits without violatingprobability;” “He could not help holding out his hand in return.”