I appreciate you coming

Question

what's the rule ? I appreciate you coming.Where else can I use like this you coming

Odessa Dawn · Accepted Answer

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Grammarfreak · Answer

I appreciate your visit. Visit is a noun.
I appreciate your visiting me. Visiting is a gerund (verbal noun)
But it is not " you" but "your" because the phrase "I appreciate" take the possessive.
Thank you for (your) coming.

Anonymous · Answer

At first , I thought the same but it's very common and it's grammatically correct for many people.

Grammarfreak · Answer

Those who believe "I appreciate YOU coming " is correct are probably the same people who would say " He don't know nothing".

It is not good English. Someone told me years ago. People judge you by the words your use and how you use it. I remember it till this day!

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousWhere else can I use ~~like this~~ a structure like "your coming"?

To be on the safe side, it's "your coming" rather than "you coming", and you can use this structure in many other ways. In this grammatical pattern the -ing form of the verb is called a gerund.

I don't like his driving so fast.
She relies on their being on time.
No one objects to our waiting here.
_______________

There have been arguments for more than a century regarding the acceptability of the following:

I don't like him driving so fast.
She relies on them being on time.
No one objects to us waiting here.

Some authorities accept it; others do not.

CJ

Fivejedjon · Answer

grammarfreakIt is not good English.

It's acceptable to many native speakers,

Grammarfreak · Answer

fivejedjonIt's acceptable to many native speakers,

Yeah, it is true. But so are these: " I ain't got no money " and " He don't bother me nothing".
To me I learned everything with correct grammar and I express my perspectives likewise. After all, this is an English forum where beginners look for traditional grammatical helps. Otherwise, where do we draw the line?

Fivejedjon · Answer

grammarfreakYeah, it is true. But so are these: " I ain't got no money " and " He don't bother me nothing".To me I learned everything with correct grammar and I express my perspectives likewise.

Some of what we older people learnt as 'correct' grammar was little more than artificial rules imposed by people whose word was taken as law by a small minority of people who were able to impose their views on others between the late 18th and mid twentieth century in Britain (an who still have some influence on the USA today.

There is nothing inherently 'correct' about either 'you' or 'your' in "I appreciate you/your coming.", though the 'your' school was the one most accepted for many years. As CJ pointed out, there have been arguments about this for a long time - there was a famous discussion in the 1920s between Fowler and Jespersen in the pages of the Journal of the Society for Pure English in the 1920s.

Most modern descriptive grammarians take the objective stance that both forms are acceptable to many writers, including highly educated people. Some note that the possessive form is accepted as incorrect by most writers in some cases, for example, I saw him/~~his~~ crossing the road.

Such descriptive grammarians would note that I ain't got no money, however, and He didn't bother me nothing are natural in some dialects/registers, but are generally considered sub-standard in the world of education and work. I appreciate you coming, however, is accepted as standard English by most authorities in the BrE world today. CJ's advice to use 'your' is sound. There are still teachers and examination boards (and members of this forum, GF) who think that what they were taught at school is still a valid rule. If you are writing a thesis in a British university, or taking a Cambridge or Trinity examination, you will not be penalised for using 'you'. You may be if you are taking an school exam in some parts of the world.

I appreciate you coming

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