Let's talk about how delightful linguistic ambiguity is in English.
Hold up. I'mma get on a real keyboard for this.
The -ing suffix is wildly overloaded in English. It can lead to some confusion and is a real challenge to people new to the language, but it can also be really fun.
For example, let's look at "kissing ladies" (ahem). There are three ways to understand this phrase.
The most elementary way is to understand "kissing" as a present tense verb and "ladies" as the object of the verb phrase. E.g. "Stacy is kissing ladies." I think most speakers would kind of short circuit this since if Stacy is any kinda mammal I know of, she just has the one mouth. But it is grammatical.
(cont.)
The second way is to understand "kissing" as a gerund, which is where you make a verb into a noun. E.g. "Stacy likes kissing ladies" where the phrase is the object of a larger verb phrase with "likes" or "Kissing ladies is great" where the phrase is the subject of the sentence.
The THIRD way is to understand "kissing" as an adjective. I don't remember the technical term for this. But in this "ladies" is the core of the phrase and "kissing" describes them. E.g. "Stacy saw some kissing ladies" or "Kissing ladies are great."
(cont.)
When I was most of the way through writing this, I realized that I was dangerously close to being a straight guy talking about women in a sexualized situation for no particularly good reason. So, I wanted to acknowledge that and hope that the truth to the "boost if you agree" meme salvages the whole thing.
@benhamill "Kissing ladies are great."
truuuuuu
@benhamill Your third example (verb-as-adjective) is a participle.
@benhamill And here's a fun fact: the way English is constructed, your first example (the progressive form of the verb, "is X-ing") is a participle too. "Kissing ladies" is a participle phrase, which functions as an adjective to describe Stacy.
@noelle Yyyyeeeeaaaaah! I wasn't sure how to address that because I'm too rusty. Thanks!
The "great" examples are what made me write this, actually. Because you see a post like "kissing ladies. boost if you agree" and I always think, "Is this 'kissing ladies is great' or 'kissing ladies are great'?"
The silver lining is that it doesn't matter because both are great! So, uh... the end. 🎉