her different
forms; and indeed it is certainly better, as _the two modes of expression
have different significations_, to confine each to its distinct and proper
use, agreeably to Dr. Crombie's rule, even when no mistake could arise
_from interchanging_ them."--_Churchill's Gram._, p. 319.

OBS. 45.--The two modes of expression which these grammarians would thus
apply constantly to different uses, on the supposition that they have
always different significations, _are the same_ that Lindley Murray and his
copyists suppose to be _generally equivalent_, and concerning which it is
merely admitted by the latter, that they do "_not in every instance_ convey
the same meaning." (See Obs. 27th above.) If Dr. Lowth considered them "as
_perfectly similar_," he was undoubtedly very wrong in this matter: though
not more so than these gentlemen, who resolve to interpret them as being
perfectly and constantly dissimilar. Dr. Adam says, "There are, both in
Latin and [in] English, substantives derived from the verb, which so much
resemble the Gerund in their signification, that _frequently_ they may be
substituted in its place. They are generally used, however, in a more
undetermined sense than the Gerund, and in English, have the article
_always_[426] prefixed to them. Thus, with the gerund, _Detector legendo
Ciceronem_, I am delighted _with reading_ Cicero. But with the substantive,
_Delector lectione Ciceronis_, I am delighted with _the reading of_
Cicero."--_Lat. and Eng. Gram._, p. 142. "Gerunds are so called because
they, as it were, signify the thing _in gerendo_, (anciently written
_gerundo_,) _in doing_; and, along with the action, convey an idea of the
agent."--_Grant's Lat. Gram._, p. 70; _Johnson's Gram. Com._, p. 353. "_The
reading of Cicero_," does not necessarily signify an action of which Cicero
is the _agent_, as Crombie, Churchill, and Hiley choose to expound it; and,
since the gerundive construction of words in _ing_ ought to have a definite
reference to the agent or subject of the action or being, one may perhaps
amend even some of their own phraseology above, by preferring the
participial noun: as, "No mistake can arise _from the using of_ either
form."--"And riches [turn our thoughts too much] _upon the enjoying of_ our
superfluities."--"Even when no mistake could arise _from the interchanging
of_ them." Where the agent of the action plainly appears, the gerundive
form is to be preferred on account of its brevity;