Hi Tim,

Yes, that’s quite common, using the gerund as a noun in grammatically the same way you would build any list. Though as with any list, simpler is often more effective.
“Thank you for coming.” is a common example which we could build on, e.g. “Thank you for coming and bringing your family.”; “Thank you for coming, bringing your family and staying for dinner.”
“Thank you for washing and drying the dishes.” could be another.

I wonder if the following structure is grammatically correct, i.e. to say “thank you” + “for” + any combination of gerunds (e.g. “gerund” and “gerund” and “gerund” and so on)? If yes, could you kindly illustrate with a few examples for me learning? Thank you.

Hi Connie – sorry about the replies, I’m not sure how the comments and notifications systems works! But you can get to me by email via the contact page.

I think you’ve hit on the crux of it there, actually – indeed, “mention” relates to something external (or, in this case, that has previously happened) whereas “enjoy” relates to a simultaneous activity. As I said, “enjoyed that she had studied” does work with a different meaning and that would be the crux of it – it refers to the fact that she had previously done (and completed) it, whereas “enjoyed studying” refers more to the activity within the moment.

I’ve tried to reply via the email I have just received but it won’t allow me to. The reason for me having this doubt is because one of my C1 students asked me this specific question and I didn’t know how to explain when to use the perfect -ing form.

The only thing I could think of was that in my first example there is an action before another (she saw him leave the party and then mentioned it), which is what makes it an perfect form and in this case you could use the perfect infinitive or perfect -ing form. However, in the second example, there isn’t an action before another (she didn’t study at university and then enjoy it), therefore, we wouldn’t use a perfect form in this case anyway.

I don’t know if I’m making sense but it’s the only explanation I can think of!

Thanks for replying.

Hi Connie – actually I don’t think the explanation is that simple: I was tempted to suggest it’s merely that different verbs can be followed by different grammatical structures, as some can take a gerund or infinitive, some only one or the other, and this essentially follows the same principle. But actually I think it’s more to do with the difference between how mention and enjoy connect to an idea, because the structure works if you say ‘she enjoyed the fact that…’, and I’d say ‘she enjoyed that she had studied’ *does* make some sense too but the meaning feels a little different.

Now I feel I’m missing something myself here, I’ll have to look it up!

‘She mentioned having seen him leave the party’

Instead of:

‘She mentioned that she had seen him leave the party’.

I know both are correct and mean the same thing but when given a different example such as:

‘She enjoyed having studied at university’

I know this is incorrect because I wouldn’t say:

‘She enjoyed that she had studied at university’.

I’m driving myself crazy with this because it seems like it should be obvious but it’s really bothering me! Help!