English Café: Gerunds are connected to prepositions

Advanced Details: Gerunds are connected to prepositions

-Ing words can be either verbs or nouns. The verb -ing word is used in verb tenses such as the present continuous and present perfect continuous, e.g., The geologist is helping our team. AND I have been working at PTTEP since March 2016. The noun -ing word is called a gerund, and it stands alone, e.g., Drilling the well is the next step. AND Our team completed the planning for the next stage.

Often at PTTEP we forget an important rule about using gerunds: A gerund must be used when a verb comes after a preposition. After completing the design, we discussed expected cost.

This is also true of certain expressions ending in a preposition; for example, the expressions in spite of and there’s no point in. For example, In spite of allowing for bad weather, we arrived late at the conference. There’s no point in continuing further discussion because our deadline cannot be changed.