please, I'm confusing now

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caijq
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Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:14 am
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please, I'm confusing now

Post by caijq »

I read a sentence recently
"gear its research towards practical applications"
In English grammar, the word 'gear' here is a verb. so my question is why not 'gearing'.
Usually, Verb as a subject should be add ing, right?
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Joe
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Re: please, I'm confused now

Post by Joe »

caijq wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:25 am I read a sentence recently
"gear its research towards practical applications"
In English grammar, the word 'gear' here is a verb. so my question is why not 'gearing'.
Usually, Verb as a subject should be add ing, right?
Is this a sentence? "gear its research towards practical applications"

It doesn't look like a sentence because it doesn't start with a capital letter and doesn't end with a punctuation mark (.!?).

Let's assume that it really is a sentence:
Gear its research towards practical applications.

In this case "Gear" is a verb used as an imperative. To issue an imperative we use the base verb - no need to add -ing or anything else. (Stop! Be quiet! Please sit down. Follow me.)

But we can also imaging this random string of words that you have given us (ie without context) with gearing instead of Gear, for example:
You can achieve that by gearing its research towards practical applications.

Context matters :evil:

PS: The subject of your post should be "I'm confused now" NOT "I'm confusing now" :mrgreen:
"We are not wholly bad or good, who live our lives under Milk Wood :-| " — Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood

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caijq
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Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:14 am
Status: Learner of English

Re: please, I'm confused now

Post by caijq »

Thank you teacher joe.
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