Use of the Gerund as the Subject in a Sentence

e.g. Smoking is bad for you. First we need to understand the English sentence structure. The English sentence begins with a subject which is followed by a verb. SUBJECT + VERB e.g. John laughed. John is the subject while laughed is the verb. This is an example of a simple sentence. We can think up other examples: Jesus wept. He sings. Babies cry. It is important to note that all the items in the subject position are either nouns or pronouns. However, it is possible to have a word ending in –ing in the subject position. This is what is called the gerund/jerand/. i. Laughing is good for your health. ii. Smoking is forbidden in my school. iii. Jogging is good for your health. We can look at other examples: Making noise is forbidden in my school. i. Staying in touch with friends and family is easy because of the mobile phone. ii. Learning a new language is difficult. iii. Making friends is worthwhile. These examples show us that the subject can be made up of more than one word. the verb in each case is 'is'. Everything to the left of the verb is part of the subject. Now think of chores that you perform around the house and write three of them down in the –ing form e.g. mopping... Finally, use the three words to construct three sentences. Make sure you use each of them as the subject.