1. DGP For the week of February 22, 2010

2. This week’s sentence: speeding around the ice hockey rink is my sister annies favorite thing to do on boring days.

3. Day One speeding (gerund) around (prep. phrase) the (article) ice hockey (adjective) rink (common noun) is (linking verb) my (possessive pronoun) sister (common noun) annies (proper/possessive noun) favorite (adjective) thing (common noun) to do (infinitive) on (preposition) boring (participle) days (common noun)

4. Notes on Gerunds: A gerund is a verbal that ends in - ing and functions as a noun. Gerund as subject: Traveling might satisfy your desire for new experiences. Gerund as direct object: They do not appreciate my singing. Gerund as subject complement (predicate nom. or pred. adj): My cat's favorite activity is sleeping. Gerund as object of preposition: The police arrested him for speeding.

5. A Gerund Phrase : Finding a needle in a haystack would be easier than what we're trying to do. You might get in trouble for faking an illness to avoid work. Being the boss made Jeff feel uneasy.

6. Your Turn: Identify the gerund phrase in each senence Eating ice cream on a windy day can be a messy experience if you have long, untamed hair. A more disastrous activity for long-haired people is blowing giant bubble gum bubbles with the car windows down. Wild food adventures require getting your hair cut to a short, safe length.

7. Be careful not to mistake a gerund phrase for a present participle phrase. Gerund and present participle phrases are easy to confuse because they both begin with an ing word. The difference is that a gerund phrase will always function as a noun while a present participle phrase describes another word in the sentence. Check out these examples: Jamming too much clothing into a washing machine will result in disaster. Bernard hates buttering toast with a fork. (DO) Buttering toast with a fork, Bernard vowed that he would finally wash the week's worth of dirty dishes piled in the sink. (Adjective phrase telling more about Bernard)

8. Points to remember: A gerund is a verbal ending in -ing that is used as a noun. A gerund phrase consists of a gerund plus modifier(s), object(s), and/or complement(s). Gerunds and gerund phrases virtually never require punctuation.