What is a gerund?

[milo]

No matter how well it's explained, I'm still confused, but that's alright. I'm more concerned with its effect and how it sounds than what it's called. Although I'm sure a real understanding of grammar is a fine tool for a writer, I don't know that my interest is strong enough to get there.

When I think of Grammar my head fills with this:

Grammar by Tony Hoagland

Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend,
smiles like a big cat and says
that she's a conjugated verb.
She's been doing the direct object
with a second person pronoun named Phil,
and when she walks into the room,
everybody turns:

some kind of light is coming from her head.
Even the geraniums look curious,
and the bees, if they were here, would buzz
suspiciously around her hair, looking
for the door in her corona.
We're all attracted to the perfume
of fermenting joy,

we've all tried to start a fire,
and one day maybe it will blaze up on its own.
In the meantime, she is the one today among us
most able to bear the idea of her own beauty,
and when we see it, what we do is natural:
we take our burned hands
out of our pockets,
and clap.

I have said this before but I cannot claim to be the originator.
If you put "in the act of" before the -ing word, and it still makes sentence sense...it is not a gerund. If it makes no sentence sense....you have a gerund.
eg.

"Mary was washing the car" now..."Mary was in the act of washing the car." still makes sense so NOT a gerund.

"Washing the car was Mary's job" now..." In the act of washing the car was Mary's job".makes NO sense. It IS a a gerund.

Easy.
Best,
tectak.

Nice, that's something I can probably remember.

I don't even know if there is a benefit to being able to identify a gerund

other than to impress people on poetry boards.