Possessives and gerunds c1.2/C2

1. Grammar:
NPR's Ari Shapiro recently interviewed Henry McDonald, who covers Ireland for The Guardian, about the
new Irish prime minister and said the following:
I understand the controversy surrounding him in the Irish media is less about his being the son of an
immigrant or being openly gay or being young and actually more about his politics.
In pairs, paraphrase the sentence above starting with The fact that...
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What word form is "fact"?
What can you infer about gerunds as opposed to present participles or adjectives ending in -ing?
Why do we use possessive adjectives before gerunds?
All verb forms in -ing are not gerunds.
In running water, running is merely an adjective
In he was running down the road, running is merely a present participle
but in please forgive my smoking a cigar in here, smoking is a gerund
that is to say it is both a noun and a verb in the same sentence here smoking is a noun (the object of
forgive) my is an adjective agreeing with the noun smoking, a cigar is the direct object of the verb
smoking.
The gerund is often used as the subject of a sentence:

2. Learning to ride a bicycle is not as easy as it looks.
Being young has its drawbacks.
But it can also be used as the object of a sentence:
Don't mention seeing me there, will you?
She enjoys flirting with women.
The gerund can be preceded by a possessive adjective or by a noun in the Saxon genitive.
1. To limit the gerund to the action of one (or several) particular person(s)
2. To indicate who is doing the action of the gerund when it is not the same as the subject of the sentence
Understanding English is easy
Your understanding that so quickly impressed me!
Smoking is not allowed in class
His smoking in class shocked us all.
She enjoys flirting with women
He enjoys her flirting with women.
Facebook’s success depends on its being able to capitalise on positive network effects
The rise of the Taliban, was in large part due to their being able to provide some basic services that the
state machinery was unable to provide...
Translate the following sentence into English:
El hecho de que tuviera que pedirle perdón al cretino ese me horrorizaba...
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El que seamos la generación mejor formada de la historia no nos garantiza un empleo...
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