Gerunds, Verbals & Participial Adjectives by Jay Dubya I've always found the I-N-G words in English grammar rather annoying and bothersome. Of course Gerunds are I-N-G words that look like verbs but act like nouns in sentences. For example the sentences "Skating is fun," "My favorite sport is skating," "I like skating" and "There are many moves in ice skating" show the Gerund skating as a subject, as a predicate nominative following a linking verb, as a direct object following an action verb and as an object of the preposition "in." Gerunds only occasionally give me a hard time as in the cases of me not wanting to own a lightning rod out of fear of being electrocuted or me wondering in which direction a newspaper heading is actually heading. The I-N-G ending (or Present Participle) words that behave like verbs occasionally give me a hassle. I sometimes speculate that "mowing lawns" could cut me up pretty good and that "pet grooming" advertised on a sign makes me think, "I don't want any pet grooming me!" I mean "painting houses" could change your skin color in-a-hurry and "hearing aids" sounds plenty more dangerous than H-I-V. Revolving charge accounts can make you dizzy if you watch one long enough, and I often wonder if fencing companies sometimes abandon using sabers and instead fight with swords? If an idea is swimming around in my head, would I then be a candidate for contracting water on the brain? Incidentally I believe that eating crow is for the birds, particularly the buzzards, but I prefer telling the truth while standing up rather than lying on the ground. And how could a person ever be caught throwing a tantrum unless the spectator knows exactly what a tantrum looks like and how much it weighs. And once at a circus sideshow I was gullible and paid a dollar to see "the man-eating crabs" only to walk into a back room and see a man sitting at a table eating crabs. Sure stupid jokes can be made by inter-playing ing verbs but it's when the Present Participle is used as a Participial Adjective that my patience and tolerance are absolutely tested to their limits. I mean how would you like to go into a large contingent of stores and have to compete with a shopping mall. And why don't hunting lodges walk around in the middle of the forest with loaded shotguns? Astronauts have to worry about being wounded by shooting stars and museum visitors often must duck down when entering a shooting gallery. And baseball umpires occasionally have to call a sliding board or a sliding door "Out" at second base and heaven forbid if you intrude on and embarrass a dressing room. And in my home's kitchen I always keep my head away from the chopping block and I often question why smoking chimneys never get cancer or emphysema. And to really aggravate me about Participial Adjectives, parking lots make it difficult for me to find a place to put my automobile and I don't desire to be maimed, mutilated or injured during TV breaking news. And I feel extra tall when in the presence of a shrinking violet and I wish I had a local planning board on my wall so that I wouldn't have to think about what I had to do next. And quite confidentially one of my biggest apprehensions is to be consumed and incinerated by a burning desire. These troublesome Participial Adjectives are both abominable and horrendous! How come swimming pools are never seen doing the breaststroke out in the Atlantic? And if a person is in a swimming pool then that individual must be careful not being injured by a diving board. Naturally I fear being gulped down by drinking water and I don't want to be threatened or molested by drinking cups. And besides that remote possibility, driving rain doesn't even have any steering wheels and speaking of driving (a Gerund here), I make it a habit to stay out of the passing lane (Participial Adjective) because I don't want to get run-over by part of the highway. And despite how intelligent they may sound writing tablets still require the use of pens and pencils and in addition they should never be swallowed. And how come running water has no feet let alone legs? And how come the school cafeteria ladies are never serving tennis balls? And why does my living room make the other parts of my house seem dead? And how come I've never been cleaned by a washing machine or defeated by a winning lottery ticket? And how does a student start finishing school? My mother once told me, "You have to look quickly or else you'll miss seeing the vanishing cream!" and I remember my sister once saying, "This gusting (Participial Adjective) wind is totally disgusting!" (Participial Predicate Adjective) Other relevant questions often confound my cerebral functioning (Gerund). Do printing specialists also know how to write in cursive? Why do citizens participate in elections if we already have voting booths to do the job for them? And why do hospitals need surgeons when they already have operating rooms and operating tables? And did you ever cower away from the idea that a hanging basket might actually strangle you? And just think about the poor innocent Mesopotamians that were lynched in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon even without the essential services of hanging judges, who might have also been suspended from ropes in the Hanging Gardens! And why don't flying insects require pilot licenses when flying humans do? Can fishing boats really catch tuna all by themselves and can Mexican jumping beans pole vault too? I wonder! These very frustrating I-N-G Participial Adjectives can easily drive an emotionally disturbed person to the brink of insanity. A paranoid college student might never take a test next to a copying machine out of fear of getting caught in a scandalous cheating incident and I never show my novels to employees at bookkeeping companies because I'll never get my hard covers or paperbacks back. And I can tolerate my telephone answering machine until it begins to challenge my statements and then defiantly answers me back. And I definitely avoid tanning salons because when I was young I once threw a football and broke a window, and my father tanned my hide pretty good. Once I eavesdropped on a conversation between two meeting rooms and when I go to Atlantic City casinos I pick up bad habits from gambling devices that coincidentally have had one of their arms amputated. And moving vans are still called moving vans even when they are parked or when they are stationary at a red traffic light! Over the years I have learned to stay away from practicing physicians and dentists because I don't like any rank amateurs experimenting on me and recently, I have mastered the art of running (verb) away from walking (Participial Adjective) pneumonia. And I was recently shocked when I drove by a local manufacturing company because I had formerly believed that only people made and assembled things. But my biggest concern is not getting (verb) my legs mangled when ambling (Verb) by the area bowling (Participial Adjective) lanes. That kind of bowling (Gerund-Object of Preposition) is not up my alley! "A Nightmare Vacation Trip" During my fifth year of teaching my wife and I had taken a three-day mini- vacation to West Virginia. We stopped at Harpers Ferry, the sight of John Brown's raid and a historic landmark rich in Civil War era heritage. Then my spouse and I proceeded south on scenic Skyline Drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains to Luray where we had planned to tour the famous underground caverns. It was getting dark and a heavy mountain fog began settling along the elevated highway. I instinctively turned on the headlights to forewarn oncoming traffic of our presence while nervously holding and blasting my horn around each successive curve and bend. "Your headlights are becoming dimmer!" my observant wife related. "You're right!" I concurred. "And now my horn has the blast of a dying mouse caught in a trap!" Luckily my expert driving had safely gotten us through the dense fog to Luray where we tarried for the night at a well' appointed motel right near the acclaimed caverns. The following morning we toured the beautiful subterranean hollows and consumed a casual lunch. Then Joanne and I returned to our motel, packed our bags, paid our debts and put all of our belongings in the car trunk. "Oh no!" I moaned to my wife. "The engine won't start!" The ignition kept making a pathetic groaning noise that sounded as if it was suffering from a severe case of laryngitis. I paced to a nearby phone booth, leafed through the yellow pages, located a number and spoke with a service station mechanic. After an hour of patient waiting the repairman arrived at the scene of distress in his tow truck. After examining my wife's car's engine the expert's diagnosis was that I needed a new battery cable. "Do you have one on your truck?" I inquired. "If not can you get one?" "Sure do have one sir," the jolly fellow with a strong southern accent replied. "I'll need to charge up the battery after I change cables. The whole deal will only cost you thirty-five bucks for parts, labor and installation!" After the defective battery cable had been removed and the new one installed I gladly paid the good-natured mechanic for his polite service and generously gave him a five-dollar tip. I proceeded out of Luray and drove through a piedmont section gradually heading down from the mountains toward the valley. We stopped at several places of interest along the route including a gift shop and a farm market. It was autumn and the tree' leaves in and around the beautiful Shenandoah Valley were turning to spectacular brown, red and yellowish hues. "Isn't the scenery magnificent?" I asked Joanne. "This is one of the prettiest sights in America!" "Yes, and this is the vicinity where Johnny Appleseed is said to have planted all those apple trees! We read a story about John Chapman in school!" my wife a third grade teacher added. "You're right John! It's quite a fantastic panorama!" It was late afternoon and twilight was slowly descending on the region. I flicked on my headlights to prepare for nocturnal driving. The radio announcer's voice sounded as if he was going unconscious while suffering from yellow fever. My wife turned the station selector dial and the next speaker sounded like a hospital patient in traction broadcasting from a very distant intensive care ward. "There's a gasoline station just up ahead!" my alert spouse noticed. "Let's stop and see if the new battery cable is loose!" My automobile sputtered to a halt just beyond the entrance to the garage. Several flabby grease monkeys came ambling over and then helped me push the green Pontiac into the service station bay. After raising the hood and generally inspecting the motor, the chief neurosurgeon said, "Your car needs a new battery!" "Install it!" I commanded. "My wife and I are on the brink of mental and physical exhaustion. Just install it!" The battery transplant was successfully completed without the use of any anesthesia. I forked over the thirty-seven dollars for the new battery, a reasonable sum even by 1970 standards. "Thank goodness the car didn't stall out in the middle of nowhere!" my wife attested. "I hope this new car isn't a lemon, even if it is a belated wedding gift from your father!" I answered. "Just drive and keep your negative comments to yourself!" Joanne sarcastically chastised. My wife and I waved to the accommodating service-station technicians and re- embarked on our northern itinerary believing that the electrical difficulty had been effectively corrected. Several hours of carefree driving elapsed and we were heading northeast toward Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A road construction project got us detoured onto a less traveled thoroughfare that had scarcely any traffic. "You must've made a wrong turn somewhere!" my upset wife declared. "I wish you'd pay more attention to what you're doing!" she criticized. "I don't remember seeing any additional detour signs!" I responded. "There's hardly any other cars on the road we're on and it's pitch black out. It's almost as if we've drifted into some mysterious Twilight Zone!" "Just stop talking and drive!" my wife exclaimed. I nearly swallowed my tongue when I perceived my headlights again dimming and then flickering on and off doing an animated dance across the deserted two-lane highway. My wife was indeed a nervous wreck. Apparitions of looming disaster haunted my cerebral processes. We intensely discussed being marooned on a forsaken country road infested with bears, skunks and bobcats. By a miraculous stroke of good fortune the green Pontiac coupe coasted down a hill and into a quaint village that featured a small service station. The gas station attendant was very cordial and cooperative. He opened the hood, browsed the engine with the aid of a trouble light and then intelligently traced the origin of the problem down to the distributor. My wife was almost in shock from the series of car-trouble' crises we had been experiencing and our only desire was to get back on the road as quickly as possible and make it to New Jersey at any expense. "I just happen to have the necessary part in stock!" the gas station guru stated in a cute Pennsylvania Dutch accent. "It's used but it'll work perfectly!" The benign fellow performed the needed distributor exchange, charged up the recently acquired battery, checked the replacement battery cable at my request and merrily charged me ninety dollars for his labor, expertise and parts. "How can we get onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike?" I asked. "Once we're on that highway I know exactly how to get home!" "Go down three miles and make a right at the fork in the road," the obliging fellow instructed. "Then go three more miles and ya' can't miss the big sign." "Thanks for fixing our car!" my wife exclaimed with a sigh of relief. "I've spent worse three-hours just sitting in the hairdresser's getting a permanent!" After a half-hour traveling east toward Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania Turnpike my headlights again began to dim and then flicker. Almost having conniptions and almost being a total basket case I pulled into the next service plaza. The night mechanics on duty were cheerful blokes and they ingeniously hypothesized that my car's ailment was electrical in nature. "Do what you need to!" I insisted. "All I want to do is drive back to Jersey alive! We should have taken the trip in my Triumph Spitfire sports car!" I told my already traumatized wife. I just had to marvel at the mechanics' mental alacrity. Two servicemen put new spark plugs in, changed several crucial wires, adjusted the points and retested the battery after charging it. I realized that the car probably didn't need a few of those items but I was so stressed out that I didn't care how much the parts and labor would cost. I just wanted to get home and escape the living nightmare my wife and I were trapped in. "Your oil is dirty!" one mechanic brought to my attention. "I think you ought to change it just to be safe!" "Go right ahead!" I agreed. I was on the verge of a mild coronary but now the engine wizards had to verbally degrade the quality of my engine oil and virtually accuse me of being derelict in maintaining my wife's undependable car. But I did not dispute their claim or challenge their mechanical knowledge. "Anything you have to do to make this tin pig run better!" I answered as my wife gave me a terrible frown as I critiqued the automobile her father had given us. I even consented to the men adding two quarts of anti-freeze and a pint of transmission fluid just to make the car run more efficiently. "They could tell me I need a new cigarette lighter and I would insist that they put one in," I revealed to my annoyed and impatient wife. "Neither of us smoke but I would still have it done just to have peace of mind!" "It was your idea to go on this relaxing trip!" my spouse reminded me. "Have you got any other great ideas?" We made it to Philadelphia and passed over the Walt Whitman Bridge into New Jersey. About three miles from our home the lights again began losing their illumination. I turned into our driveway, shut off the ignition, took a deep breath and then began unloading our suitcases and souvenirs from the jinxed car. The following morning I just managed to get the engine started. Then I drove the accursed auto' to the local garage mechanic. He inspected the engine without the aid of a sage Ouija Board and immediately determined that the fan belt that cranks up the alternator had snapped off and its absence was paralyzing the car's entire electrical system, especially at night when additional power was required to operate the headlights. The fan belt cost me $3.98 plus labor, but the point is that I had spent almost three hundred hard-earned dollars in parts and labor for a vital $3.98 part. A dozen pleasant mechanics had seen the same thing and had come up with the wrong theories as to why the lights were flickering. But only the last automobile guru in my hometown had the ability to pinpoint and finally alter the deficiency. All of the "mechanics" I had encountered were courteous and amiable but only one of them knew exactly what he was doing. "I now know that education isn't the only field where incompetent performance flourishes," I told my wife at the supper table. "This country needs more knowledgeable automobile mechanics." "Be quiet and just eat your lima beans!" Joanne answered back. But then a revolutionary thought occurred to me. In speaking with each of the "mechanics" I had learned that they all had graduated from high school, even though they were inept at diagnosing engine problems. But they all also had congenial dispositions and temperaments. But their bungling had cost me in excess of three hundred dollars in unnecessary expenses. Then it all came to me like some supernatural revelation. "Incompetent performance in high school education is the genesis of the irresponsibility we had experienced with the untrained garage mechanics," I informed my wife. "They learn how to socialize and get along with each other in high school classrooms but their educations grossly unprepared them for their future occupations. We have to begin assessing the true damage schools are doing to young people!" I argued. "Now that you've eaten your lima beans," my spouse uttered, "you can now start on your broccoli!" "Joanne, of what value is a society of friendly workers that can't produce, that cost others valuable time and money, and that lack adequate skill in their jobs?" I asked. "Of what benefit are nice guys that make a motorist pay over three hundred bucks for a four dollar fan belt?" "Don't forget your mashed potatoes," my wife reminded me. "I had to mash them all by myself because you were at the auto' mechanic's garage!" The real education in America is not done by public schools. It' is done by large corporations like IBM, AT&T, Microsoft, General Motors and GE. Those companies train (there's that evil word) prospective employees to perform highly specialized tasks. The thrust of corporate America is to turn a profit and company executives realize that highly trained workers contribute to the prosperity of the firm and to the stability of the country when they train (teach) people to do specific jobs. High schools could best serve non-college-bound students by setting up curricula with large and medium-sized corporations to begin training the future blue- collar workers that are presently vegetating in academic English and history classes and terrorizing teachers in home economics, the cafeteria, mass study halls and in family living classes. An incredible Great Barrier Reef separates the concept of "child-centered curriculum" with its liberal expectations from the tough standards that are demanded of employees by corporate America. While pursuing the Holy Grail of democratic education public schools are performing a terrible disservice to this great nation. The child-centered curriculum, democratic sociological education, the lack of tough academic standards and the promotion of "cooperative learning" are really the antitheses of orderly self-responsibility and self- accountability. Just imagine the fate of American corporations if the companies practiced "worker centered production," "psychological cooperative production among employees," "democratic rights on the assembly line" and "sociological bottom lines." The "democratic comprehensive high schools" are producing non-college-bound graduates that are grossly unprepared to be absorbed into the mainstream of the American free enterprise system. A future citizen needs food in his stomach before needing to "socialize." He or she needs clothes on his or her back before he or she needs to get along with others in cooperative groups, and students need secure jobs based on adequate training before they need a devalued piece of parchment inscribed with the official school emblem. More articles by Jay Dubya http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/4820/