...sick and tired of your complaint/ complaining

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dcomest

#77446 Tue, 01 Mar 05 05:27 AM

Hi, folks!

I'd like to know the difference between the two sentences below:

a) ??I'm sick and tired of your [complaint].
b) I'm sick and tired of your [complaining].

I think that a) sounds a bit awkward and that b) sounds better, but semantics aside, sentence a) is grammartically correct, isn't it? When I googled sentence a) I've got no result, which made me curious a lot.

Would you kindly share your opinion about this?

Thanks in advance.

Jay from ROK

dcomest

Joined on Thu, Jan 6 2005

New Member (19)

Difference between

Mister Micawber

#77449 Tue, 01 Mar 05 05:52 AM

You may be googling too much sentence, Jay. 'Of your complaint' = 128,000'; 'of your complaining' = 1330.

'Complaint' is usually thought of as a singular countable noun, so it is difficult to conceive of a listener getting sick and tired of one complaint, whereas it is easy to imagine doing so at continued complaining.

Nevertheless, grammatically, both sentences are right.

Mister Micawber

Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004

Yokohama

Veteran Member (20,418)

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'