These days we don't put it an a scrapbook; we say, I'm really into scrapbooking. Poof, from the ether, a gerund is born. Busy business people are calendaring appointments. Voila! A new piece of paper becomes an action verb!

But is there a word for making words into gerunds? I hereby proposed a new word. Gerunding! Think it'll make Oxford's next edition?

As far as I can see, your field of enquiry is a subdiscipline of "verbing of nouns", which has been amply treated in this forum. A noun first has to be verbed before it can be gerunded . The appropriate question would thus be if "to gerund" would make it to the OED. Which I doubt.

Dear King Bee ~

Don't be put off. Werner always sounds that serious. Even when he is ordering chocolate. Welcome to the fun house.

Father Steve

is scrapbooking a gerund?
i remember being taught that
fishing as in "joe went fishing today" isn't a gerund, but
fishing as in "NO Fishing" was.

the difference being a gerund has the quality of "a continuous state of being"
joe wasn't fishing yesterday, and might not being fishing tomorrow, so fishing, wasn't for joe, a continual state of being.

but the NO Fishing sign meant no fishing today, and there was no fishing permitted yesterday, and no fishing would be possible tomorrow.. fishing was not permitted continually.

you might be involved in scrapbooking in your free time, or on weekends, but i doubt you are continually working on your scrapbook..

still me getting involved in fine points of grammar and parts of speach is not a good thing.. i'll stick to my knitting.

>>i'll stick to my knitting. <<

Which, according to your definition, is definitely a gerund as far as you're concerned, ot.

Gerund itself is a gerund in Latin (gerundum) from the verb gero (gessi, gestum) 'to bear, carry, perform a duty or action'. Gerunds (verbal nouns) and present participles (verbal adjective) use the same suffix -ing in English but are different forms in Latin (amns vs amandum 'loving'). Then, there's also the gerundive in Latin which is a future passive participle (verbal adjective). Infinitives and gerunds are quite close in meaning and use in English: "to read (books) is a pleasure" vs "reading (books) is a pleasure", but "I want to read" vs *"I want reading". I would prefer gerundizing to gerunding.

the difference being a gerund has the quality of "a continuous state of being"
joe wasn't fishing yesterday, and might not being fishing tomorrow, so fishing, wasn't for joe, a continual state of being.
But Helen if "he is running" isn't running a gerund? It doesn't say anything about whether he was running yesterday, will run tomorrow or what is chasing him.
It's confusing.
umm is THAT a gerund? cos grammer continually confuses me

I'm not sure how helpful AHD's def. is, but here:

gerund

SYLLABICATION: ger·und
PRONUNCIATION: jrnd

NOUN: 1. In Latin, a noun derived from a verb and having all case forms except the nominative. 2. In other languages, a verbal noun analogous to the Latin gerund, such as the English form ending in -ing when used as a noun, as in singing in We admired the choir's singing.

ETYMOLOGY: Late Latin gerundium, from alteration (modeled on participium, participle) of Latin gerundum, variant of gerendum, neuter gerundive of gerere, to carry on.

OTHER FORMS: ge·rundi·al (j-rnd-l) —ADJECTIVE

bartleby

But Helen if "he is running" isn't running a gerund? It doesn't say anything about whether he was running yesterday, will run tomorrow or what is chasing him

The "running" in "he is running" is a present participle. It's an adjective, and not a verbal noun, which is technically what a gerund is. In "the running of this campaign has been flawed from day one" "running" is a gerund. You cannot say: "he is the running", can you?

No, but you can say "He is in the running."

BTW, another great verbed noun to add to the list is 'medalling'. This one can be particularly confusing as 'meddling' already exists. 'He looking to medal here' certainly sounds a little weird to me. Thank sports commentators for that one.