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Guyper Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Verb with the -ing

"He posted the steps to operating the machine on his blog"

Hi, I'd like to know why the verb, "operate" is in -ing and not simply "operate" when there's the preposition, "to" prior to it

Thank you
  

Top answer

"Operating" in your sentence is a gerund, it's not a verb. This construction is the same as the following one The key to speaking good English is constant practice. (the "to" is a preposition attached to the noun key , it's not attached to "speaking"; the to in your sentence is thus attached to the steps, not to "operating")

— Ivanhr

  • "Operating" in your sentence is a gerund, it's not a verb.
  • This construction is the same as the following one The key to speaking good English is constant practice.
  • (the "to" is a preposition attached to the noun key , it's not attached to "speaking"; the to in your sentence is thus attached to the steps, not to "operating")
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13 Answers
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"Operating" in your sentence is a gerund, it's not a verb. This construction is the same as the following one

The key to speaking good English is constant practice. (the "to" is a preposition attached to the noun key , it's not attached to "speaking"; the to in your sentence is thus attached to the steps, not to "operating")
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Is it because it is an exception due to some of the prior nouns such as steps and key found in the sentences?

Or do the whole operating the machine and speaking good english part work as noun as a whole?
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Ivanhr"Operating" in your sentence is a gerund, it's not a verb. This construction is the same as the following one The key to speaking good English is constant practice. (the "to" is a preposition attached to the noun key , it's not attached to "speaking"; the to in your sentence is thus attached to the steps, not to "operating")
Sorry to disagree, Ivanhr. I
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GuyperIs it because it is an exception due to some of the prior nouns such as steps and key found in the sentences?Or do the whole operating the machine and speaking good English part work as noun as a whole?
No, these are both gerund clauses where "operating" and "speaking" are functioning as verbs. You can tell they are verbs because they have
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Guyper"He posted the steps to operating the machine on his blog"

Hi, I'd like to know why the verb, "operate" is in -ing and not simply "operate" when there's the preposition, "to" prior to it
You're saying "the preposition 'to'" in reference to the combination "to operate". This is not correct.
"to" is not a preposition in that case, but part of
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BillJ
Ivanhr"Speaking" is a verb (not a noun) because it's functioning as a verb, as can be seen by the fact that it takes a direct object, "good English". Only verbs take direct objects. BillJ
BillJ, are you saying that gerunds can't take direct objects? If so, could you comment on the following sentence

I like making
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If I may **** in, I believe BillJ is objecting to this comment of yours:

"Operating" in your sentence is a gerund, it's not a verb.

BillJ is saying that what you call a gerund is a verb if I understood him correctly. And if what you call a gerund is a verb and a verb can take a direct object, then what you call a gerund ca
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CalifJimAnd if what you call a gerund is a verb and a verb can take a direct object, then what you call a gerund can take a direct object. CJ
Yes, in fact the wikipedia article that I referred to in my previous post explicitly says

The gerund of transitive verbs can take a direct object.
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IvanhrThe gerund of transitive verbs can take a direct object.
Put that together with "Only verbs can take a direct object" and you get "Gerunds are verbs" - which is why I suppose you shouldn't have said earlier that gerunds are not verbs, right?

CJ
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