[Grammar] Is this sentence grammatical?

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cubezero3

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Hi, everyone.

I saw the following sentence on the Guardian website today.

Zimbabwe abandoned its own dollar in 2009 after hyperinflation, which had peaked at around 500bn%, rendered it unusable.

I think rendered it unusuable should be changed to rendering it unusuable.

I am under the impression that v-ing and v-ed forms can be used as adjectives and an adjective taking the v-ing form in general delivers the information that the noun described by it sort of does the action, as in a boy standing under the tree. Here we can clearly see it's hyperinflation that rendered the said dollar unusuable. In a sense, the hyperinflation did the action hence the v-ing form, or rendering, should be put in place instead.

It's the Guardian. So I am probably wrong here. If so, can you tell me where I went wrong, or the term describing these kind of situations?

Many thanks

Richard
 

MikeNewYork

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Look at it again without the relative clause.

"Zimbabwe abandoned its own dollar in 2009 after hyperinflation rendered it unusable."

You will see that "rendered" is the verb of the "after" clause.
 

Tarheel

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Zimbabwe abandoned its own dollar in 2009 after hyperinflation rendered it unusable.

What would happen if we changed "rendered" to "rendering"?
 

MikeNewYork

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If you do that and put the relative clause back in, it won't work.
 

Rover_KE

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cubezero3, a better title would have been rendered/rendering it unusable.

'Thread titles should include all or part of the word/phrase being discussed.'
 

bhaisahab

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"Zimbabwe abandoned its own dollar in 2009 after hyperinflation rendered it unusable."
This wouldn't work with "rendering".
 

cubezero3

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Thank you Rover_KE, I tried to come up with a better title but failed.

My brower seems not to be working properly. I clicked the thumb up button several times and nothing happened. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for sharing your thoughts.:)
 

Tdol

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If you want an example with rendering:

Hyperinflation peaked at around 500bn%, rendering the Zimbabwean dollar unusable.
 

TheParser

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***** NOT A TEACHER *****

I just thought that some learners would like to know that we could also add a word to the Editor's excellent sentence:

"Hyperinflation peaked at around 500bn%, thus rendering the Zimbabwean dollar unusable."

I learned from the great George Oliver Curme that both the Editor's and my sentences are just shorter ways of saying:

"Hyperinflation peaked at around 500bn%, so that it rendered the Zimbabwean dollar unusable."

(On page 293 in Volume II of his 1931 masterpiece A Grammar of the English Language.)
 
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