this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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English usage and grammar

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Is it correct to use the present participle to describe what something does rather than only describing/modifying its current state? (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Kalcifer@lemm.ee to c/english@lemmy.ca
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For example:

It is a thing that works producing stuff.

This feels wrong to me, but I can't quite put my finger on what exactly is wrong about it. It seems like it's trying to be a participle phrase, but it's not necessarily modifying the current state of "it", and is, instead, describing what "it" is.

If it is, indeed, a participle phrase, then it should be able to be written as

Producing stuff, it is a thing that works.

But, to me, this doesn't seem correct either, so it leads me to believe that the very structure of the sentence is incorrect.

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[–] teuast@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Both of those are really awkwardly constructed. If I'm reading it correctly, "works" is the state of the thing, and "producing stuff" is what the thing is supposed to do, and every construction I can come up with for this sentence that doesn't feel super awkward puts the latter first.