"Swimming" isn't right

Swimmers who are reading this, I like swimming and I am talking about the grammar of the word, not the sport itself, so don't send angry comments about me not liking swimming.













While I was checking for comments on the post "Beast" is not "Beast" , I noticed this comment: "Just to add a point. English words can often be used as not only adjectives and nouns, but also verbs without a change.

1.) I am swimming (swimming is the action or verb)

2.) He was a swimming champion (swimming, the adjective, describes champion, the noun)

3.) She is good at swimming (swimming, in this case, is an noun as it is being acted upon by the verb "is")

boom, roasted beast."



Commenter, you do have a point, some things can change parts of speech without modification, but the case you gave doesn't really work in the way I think you think it does.



The first example you gave is wrong. "Swimming" is not a verb, it is a gerund. Gerunds are used by placing "-ing" at the end of verbs to make them nouns. For some reason the English language decided that the plain form of the verb wasn't good enough for it and use a form of the verb "be" instead. So, "am" is the verb, not "swimming" and if it was, it would be "am swimming." If you want to get it in its pure form, you would say "I swim" and all of the examples I gave are modifications.

The second example is really hard to prove wrong. I will have to delve into German to prove you wrong. German and English are both of the Germanic branch and have similar grammar. You may object to me using German to justify a point about the English language, but all's fair in love, war, and grammar-related debates. By the way, if you're going to provide a counter-point, get your points from the Germanic Branch, not the Romance Branch or anything else. In German, you could say this two different ways. The first is with an adjective. Er war schwimmenden Meister. This could work as an adjective, even though it requires rewording in the German version, but this is not what you mean to say. This implies that the champion is currently swimming. You can argue against me, but this is what it seems like. You probably want the second way, making it a compound word. Er war Schwimmenmeister. This is what you want it to mean, but it makes it part of the word, it is a compound word, not an adjective. You can debate me all you want on this, but I think it is confusing, and potentially incorrect grammar. It would be best to say "He was a champion at swimming." That's another gerund, so you only have one case so far.

I have no reason to debate you on the third case. It seems grammatically correct and uses the gerund as a noun. So far you have proven that it can be used in one way, as a noun. So, if you are still not convinced that you should modify slang words to turn them into other parts of speech, I hope this helps.

By the way, if you are a native speaker of German, feel free to correct me. I am learning and don't know how to make compound words.

P.S. Sorry if you thought I was being rude, I became competitive.



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A couple comments. First, I said German and English had similar grammar, not the same. Second, I will recant my claim on it not being an adjective, that would get into stuff that I'm not quite as well versed in. Third, Your adjective examples only have them placed in front of nouns, can you think of cases where they don't need a noun directly after them. Fourth, can you think of any adverbs that follow this rule. Finally, I said that most words need modification to change, there may be some exceptions, but I meant like "slow" to "slowly," "good" to "goodness," "boy" to "boyish". I'm not sure if your examples are as clear-cut as that. Anyway, do you really think that slang doesn't have to follow these rules? That was the original debate. Slang words are as much a part of the language as common words, whether people like it or not, they have to follow the rules too.

"Beast" is not "Beast"

I bet most of you know what the word "beast" means. I am not talking about an animal other than a human, but the new slang definition. For those of you who don't know, I'm not exactly sure of the exact definition, but I have heard it and know that it's supposed to be good. I do not like this expression and you can debate me to death on it, but you have to prove my points wrong before you convince me.
It has to do mostly with "The Lord of The Flies." I read this book for LA class and finished my first reading of it in one day. I forgot some of the details and read it again in two days. If you have read this book before, you may know where I am going with this. Otherwise, I will tell you. These British boys are trapped on an island and have to form a society to survive. My reasoning for not liking the word "beast" in this connotation, the other connotation is just fine, is because of what happens on that island. It all started when the younger kids, the “littluns” were having nightmares about a strange creature that was somewhat like a snake. Then, another beast came from water and the older kids were starting to believe it was real. They really believed the beast was real when Sam and Eric thought they saw a beast from air and Jack tried to appease it with a pig’s head on a stick.
Simon found out two things. The first is that the beast Samneric, Sam and Eric, thought they saw was just a dead parachutist. The other was that the real beast would have no power if they knew what it truly was. Unfortunately, the kids became frenzied and killed Simon, thinking that he was the beast. If you remember reading this book, you know who the beast really was. It was Beelzebub, der Teufel. I hope that you can guess what I mean by these, because I’m not saying it in English. I’m using to saying the name in German and you can look it up here: http://www.dict.cc/. I have a feeling someone is going to challenge me on this. If you wish to debate me, leave a comment and I will respond as another comment. Regardless of what you say, I doubt you will sway my opinion, I dare you to try.
Added on 10/03/09:
Okay, my post is poorly written... I don't provide enough evidence and this isn't completely directed at beast, it is more about slang words that, in general, have connatations that were originally bad, now have a meaning that is good that has nothing to do with the original connatation. "Sick" is an example of this.
Another grammatically related thing, I'm pretty sure "beast" in its slang version has been used as an adjective and a noun. Pick one and assign appropriate endings to change it to the other part of speech.
One last comment, Mikey J did sway my opinion, but not in the way I was intending. I don't watch sports that much so







Anyway, I don't watch sports much, if at all, so I had no idea where this slang term came from. Mikey J, your description made sense, but in some ways. "Beast"'s connatation is something like "a wild animal." For sports and physical challenges, this analogy could work well. I know that sports require strategy, wild animals have to be cunning, this could work too. As for purely mental things, did you ever see wolves learning advanced math? Wild animals need to stay in shape or they'll starve. These things arise from not having to do as much physical work, which wild animals do plenty of. I can understand physical and mental combined, but if you gave a random wolf your trig test, it wouldn't know what to do with it. So, if you were a "beast" in Friday's game, you did well, but if you were a "beast" on the test, you flunked it. That's how I seem to intepret it. Mikey J, feel free to challenge this one if you wish.

Photo from here