Please Explain Gerunds!

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<p>Screw-Up 6: Gerunds
As we said in screw-up 4 a gerund is a verb form that ends in –ing, such as prancing, divulging, stuffing, and so on. Your understanding of gerunds will usually be tested by questions that use the infinitive “to ___” form, such as to prance, to divulge, and to stuff.</p>

<p>In my family , Thanksgiving dinner usually causes two or<br>
A<br>
more family members to engage in a screaming match, thus preventing<br>
B C<br>
the meal to be completed . No error .
D E </p>

<p>In this example, the problematic phrase is preventing the meal to be completed. This phrase should read thus preventing the meal from being completed, changing the infinitive to be to the conjugated form, being. That change preserves the parallel structure with the gerund preventing in the last clause. Here’s another example:</p>

<p>To keep your engine running in the freezing cold is a good<br>
A B<br>
way to keep the car’s interior warm and cozy. No error .
C D E </p>

<p>In this sentence, the infinitive verb to keep should be switched to the gerund keeping to match the gerund verb running in the same clause.</p>

<p>I found this from the Sparknotes 7 Common Errors page, but I don't quite understand when and why you should use a gerund. Can someone please elaborate? Thanks!</p>

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<p>A gerund isn’t a verb form. It’s a noun derived from a verb by adding ing. For instance, consider the sentence ‘Running is fun.’ Even though run is a verb and not a noun, the word ‘running’ in the sentence acts as a noun.</p>

<p>What the explanations say is that when you have two verb forms in a direct sentence, then you want both of them to be of the same kind. For instance, you wouldn’t say ‘To teach is learning’ or ‘Teaching is to learn’. You would either say ‘To teach is to learn’ or ‘Teaching is learning’.</p>

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<p>Gerunds are usually better for indicating a general class of activity, while the infinitive form is better for indicating a specific activity in which someone actively participates in.</p>