Mind your language

9 September 2006

A creature so rare that its existence had been discountenanced has been discovered in South Africa. The creature is the English gerundive, a relative of the extinct Latin gerundive, and its discoverer is Jean Branford, the respected editor of A Dictionary of South African English. I had never believed in the existence of the English gerundive until now. Just to place it in its habitat, let us remember that:

1. The participle (Latin amans) shares properties of verbs and adjectives, as with reading, ‘the reading public’.

2. The gerund (Latin amandum) is a verbal noun, active in meaning, as with reading – ‘reading occupies Charles’ (where reading acts as a subject); ‘reading law journals occupies Charles’ (where the noun phrase is the subject of the sentence, and reading takes an object, law journals, in the noun-phrase); ‘Charles enjoys reading’, where the gerund functions as an object.

3. The gerundive (Latin amandus –a –um) is a verbal adjective passive in meaning. It is translated as ‘fit to be loved’, ‘fit to be read’, or ‘lovable’.

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