She will never forgive swearing in her presence.

[sitifan]

She will never forgive swearing in her presence.
(Ho's Complete English Grammar, Book 5, page 53)
Is the above sentence acceptable?

 

[jutfrank]

What do you mean by 'acceptable'? Are you asking what it means? Or if it sounds natural? Or if it's grammatical?

You obviously have some problem with it so tell us what you're thinking.

 

[sitifan]

What do you mean by 'acceptable'? Are you asking what it means? Or if it sounds natural? Or if it's grammatical?
You obviously have some problem with it so tell us what you're thinking.

I feel that the sentence below seems more natural.
She will never forgive anyone swearing in her presence.

 

[jutfrank]

That's also fine but it isn't more natural. It just has a slightly different meaning.

 

[Holmes]

She will never forgive swearing in her presence.
(Ho's Complete English Grammar, Book 5, page 53)
Is the above sentence acceptable?

I find that sentence unnatural. I'd be more comfortable with either of these, which are semantically equivalent to it:

Swearing in her presence is something she will never forgive.
She will never forgive profanity's being used in her presence.

 

[emsr2d2]

I find all the suggestions fairly unnatural, mainly because they all seem overly formal. In natural everyday English, I'd expect "She won't forgive anyone who swears at her/around her".
It seems pointless to say she "won't forgive swearing" - it's people who swear, not the words themselves. Also, whilst it's understandable that she might be angry with people who swear while speaking directly to her, she's going to have a very stressful life if she's going to have that reaction to everyone who swears within her earshot. She might as well lock herself away from the world if she wants to avoid it completely.
I realise it's an example sentence from a textbook but I'm simply trying to indicate that not all sentences in textbooks are likely to ever be heard in real English.

 

[Rover_KE]

This isn’t the first time we’ve questioned the ‘acceptability’ of one of Ho’s sample sentences.

It’s a pity you’re obliged to use this text book, sitifan.

 

[Tarheel]

Sometimes one "like" is not enough. (Post #6.) Anyhow, let's personalize it, shall we?

I'm not against all kinds of swearing. How could I be? I do it myself. However, there are some things that offend me, and I don't want to learn how to tolerate them.

I think that sometimes people offer alternatives that are unnatural -- perhaps because they don't want to stray too far from the original.

 

[Holmes]

In natural everyday English, I'd expect "She won't forgive anyone who swears at her/around her".

Perhaps Ho is trying to convey the idea of something that someone considers an unforgiveable offense. Someone who has committed what someone else considers an unforgiveable offense will not be forgiven by that person for that action.

Here is a natural construction that goes with that idea. I'm surprised that this construction with "for" has not been mentioned so far in this thread. It simply adds "for" to Sitifan's proposal in Post #3, between "anyone" and the -ing phrase:

She will never forgive anyone for swearing in her presence.

 

[Tarheel]

It's unlikely that she will ever get a chance to forgive anyone for swearing.

Perhaps:

She will not tolerate swearing.

 

[jutfrank]

If I'm reading the thread correctly, it seems I'm the only one here so far who's comfortable with and who thinks that 'forgiving an action' makes good sense, along with the much more common 'forgiving somebody (for an action)'.

I find that sentence unnatural. I'd be more comfortable with either of these, which are semantically equivalent to it:

Swearing in her presence is something she will never forgive.

Holmes, since this means you accept swearing in her presence as an object of the verb 'forgive', I wonder what exactly you like about emsr2d2's post #6, which unequivocally says that for her, only 'forgive somebody' makes any sense. Could you clarify?

She will never forgive profanity's being used in her presence.

I can't see how you'd consider this more natural than the original. What makes it so? Is it something to do with using the passive voice? What's the difference between swearing and profanity's being used? I'm curious.

 

[tedmc]

I find that sentence unnatural. I'd be more comfortable with either of these, which are semantically equivalent to it:

Swearing in her presence is something she will never forgive.
She will never forgive profanity's being used in her presence.

Why is "profanity's" used with an "apostrophe s"?
Should it be "profanities"?

 

[jutfrank]

Why is "profanity's" used with an "apostrophe s"?

It's possessive. You can read it as '(the) use of profanity'.

 

[Tarheel]

Why is "profanity's" used with an "apostrophe s"?
Should it be "profanities"?

I would say "profanity".

 

[Holmes]

Why is "profanity's" used with an "apostrophe s"?
Should it be "profanities"?

Profanity's being used is a passive gerund with a possessive subject. Here's the active-voice gerund correlate:

She will never forgive a person's using profanity in her presence.