[qu4z-2]

Is "eat" a noun too now?

What's the subject of the previous sentence?

If we insisted on only using gerunds + "do", English would be a very strange world indeed. I imagine it would sound much like Java often does: "Eating is done by me of a sandwich.". Sometimes even "An eating is done [...]" :)

PS: The author is hardly illiterate. That's plain uncharitable.

[gweinberg]

<i>What's the subject of the previous sentence?</i>

"eat". Words used as words are nouns in that context. Like the word "eat". Like the word "word". When something is eaten, someone or something is doing the eating, eat" doesn't eat itself.

I think it's fair to be a bit harsh when the entire essay is based on grade-school level misunderstanding of what nouns and verbs are.

[qu4z-2]

The question was somewhat rhetorical.

The point I was trying to convey was that even though verbs can be used in a noun context, that doesn't really make them nouns.

Similarly functions and objects. There's a certain verbiness to a multiply function that a Cat object doesn't have.

For further consideration: "It rained." What's doing the raining?