The gerund vs the verbal noun

Some of the nouns ending in ‘-ing’, for example, ‘painting’, ‘feeling’, landing’, ‘dressing’, etc. denote concrete things, names of material and abstract notions:

• It looked like Leeds United were going to get a beating (a bad defeat)

• Many abstract nouns have the ending ‘-ness’ (the last group of letters in a word)

There are Many of such nouns are derived from verbs with the help of the grammatical suffix - ing. They are called verbal nouns.

The form of the verbal noun is similar to that of the gerund. Moreover, the verbal noun and the gerund can be used in the same functions in the sentence, e.g. the subject, object, etc.: Compare

• Her quick understanding made it easy.noun

• Her understanding it quickly was very pleasant. gerund

The problem is how to discriminate them. The main criterion runs that The verbal noun has no verbal characteristics, while the gerund does not have some of the noun characteristics:

Here are their discriminating features in comparison

The Gerund	The Verbal Noun
No articles: When we finished eating, she told me to help her with the dishes.	The use of articles is possible: I would’ve preferred a whipping, but I had no choice. The students having passed their exams, the partying began. (The verbal noun originates from the verb ‘party’)
No plural form	The plural form is possible: The throne room was vast and almost impossibly grand, all huge gilt mirrors and fine paintings and red velvet hangings.
Modified by an adverb: She smiled and kept chewing slowly	Modified by an adjective: We drifted to the front porch for our nightly sitting
Followed by a direct object: It is just like him to startle us by doing something unexpected	Followed by of-phrase: It was quiet except for the whirring of the machines, the beeping, the dripping, the ticking of the big clock on the wall
Analytical forms are possible: Lucas was of course extremely upset by having killed a man, even though a bad man.	No analytical forms

Verbal nouns can have a different morphological structure from that of the verb they are derived from: bring up – upbringing, take leave – leave taking, etc.:

• My husband’s upbringing was completely different from mine.

• She brought up three sons on her own.

Sometimes, the distinction between the verbal noun and the gerund poses some difficulty because of the absence of the above criteria in a sentence: The matter needed checking.

• The child’s crying made me nervous.

• Smoking is forbidden.

However, the presence of such makes the distinction between them clear:

The matter needed checking carefully.

• The matter needed careful checking.