Possessive before a gerund.

MrP,

I agree that "provide for this's being done" doesn't work, but "provide for John's being fed" is grammatical at least. In either case, though, I would be more likely to say "provide for this to be done" or "provide for John to be fed." I could never bring myself to say "provide for this being done" or "provide for John being fed."

Are you British, by the way? (I ask because of the Stanley Matthews reference.) When I posted my first question on this forum, it was to learn whether formal American and British English differed on this point. I think we have established that Paco and I were both taught in the sixties to say "one's doing," but that this rule is widely ignored in speech (and, in my experience, in British written text). What I would dearly love to know is whether British schoolchildren, back in the day when grammar was taught, would have been told the same thing or not, or whether the "fused participle" has always been accepted in the UK.

Pedant

MrP,

Thanks. Yes, I have certainly noticed many small differences in usage, most of which are easy to grasp, however. One related usage I still find strange is in, for example, "we must stop him doing that." In AmE it would be "we must stop him FROM doing that," which preserves "doing" as a gerund. I suppose you could say "we must stop his doing that," but that's not at all a common AmE use of stop/prevent/etc.

I also find it very strange to see "who" used as an object in print -- it's common enough on both sides of the Atlantic to hear "who are you goin to call" in speech, but not to see it in the New York Times, for example. I have been astonished to see "who" defined as a subjective or objective pronoun in BrE dictionaries.

We must say how d'you do next time we pass in the street. I'm the one wearing the bowler.

Pedant

"We must stop him doing that" – now you mention it, yes. I hadn't even noticed. (I know I would say 'prevent him from doing'; but 'stop from'? I don't know whether I do or not. Will have to catch myself unawares.)

We're also losing 'against', in 'appeal/protest against a decision'; though I think this is standard in some non-Br Englishes.

'Who' as object pronoun has received a fair amount of (usually vigorous) attention in this forum. 'Whom-resistance' is certainly very strong in BrE (perhaps that should be 'whom-hostility'). 'Whom' manages to subsist with the help of some sympathetic prepositions in the odd scrap of written BrE; but as you say, mostly, it's a much-kicked and -jeered-at little pronoun. I would not like to be 'whom', in today's BrE.

A tip of the headgear to you!
MrP

Anonymous

 the second one is the correct sentence. WHISPERING is working as a gerung. Hence, it takes a noun position. Nouns are preceeded by possessives: the child´s.

 

Hmm... So, I insist on English's being spoken is right?

CB