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Chariot Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

fighting, fight

...the hero who fell in the fighting .....

I wonder if fighting can be changed to "fight"? If both are correct? How to tell the difference? I am not sure when to use a noun, when to use a gerund. When both the noun and the gerund are available, which is the best choice? Thanks for your help.
  

Top answer

I wonder if fighting can be changed to "fight"? Yes, but with a different meaning in this context. fighting suggests something large and organized like struggle or battle or war .

— CalifJim

  • I wonder if fighting can be changed to "fight"?
  • Yes, but with a different meaning in this context.
  • fighting suggests something large and organized like struggle or battle or war .
  • fight suggests something smaller like fisticuffs between two individuals.
  • When speaking of a hero, the larger meaning of fighting seems more appropriate than the smaller, in my opinion, because when someone falls in a battle, it means he has been killed; when someone falls in a fight, it only means that he has been knocked on the ground, a position from which it's rather difficult to look heroic.
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2 Answers
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I wonder if fighting can be changed to "fight"?
Yes, but with a different meaning in this context.
fighting suggests something large and organized like struggle or battle or war.
fight suggests something smaller like fisticuffs between two individuals.
When speaking of a hero, the larger meaning of fighting seems more app
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Not likely. ‘Fight’ can be a count noun but not ‘fighting’. ‘Fighting’ talks about people fighting in a war. ‘Fight’ means something else. The hero who fell in the fighting probably refers to someone who fell in major conflict, like a war between 2 countries. ‘Fight’ is a conflict between people of a smaller scale.
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