your having been involved in

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ostap77

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I would have said something like 1)"I heard you guys went to a pub to cut loose last night."

Did you ever hear someone saying not writing 2)"I've heard of your having been involved in an act of outrageous behaviour in a pub." I've been travelling a lot. I've never heard someone saying something like this.
 
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Mehrgan

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I would have said something like "I heard you guys went to a pub to cut loose last night."

Did you ever hear someone saying not writing "I've heard of your having been involved in an act of outrageous behaviour in a pub." I've been travelling a lot. I've never heard someone saying something like this.


I'm agreed. It sounds too formal. "I've heard of you having been..." sounds a more normal one.

*not a teacher"
 

ostap77

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I'm agreed. It sounds too formal. "I've heard of you having been..." sounds a more normal one.

*not a teacher"

I would say "I heard about you guys being involved in ......."? What do other people think?

If someone said 2), it would be too formal. You might come across it in books but in conversation...? I doubt it a lot.
 
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5jj

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Writers on grammar have disagreed about this for a long time. Prescriptive grammarians insist on your; most of us actually say you.
 

ostap77

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Writers on grammar have disagreed about this for a long time. Prescriptive grammarians insist on your; most of us actually say you.

I mean "having been involved in". Why not to say just " I heard about you guys being involved in somethig last night."
 

5jj

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I mean "having been involved in". Why not to say just " I heard about you guys being involved in somethig last night."

Sounds OK to me.
 

Barb_D

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Writers on grammar have disagreed about this for a long time. Prescriptive grammarians insist on your; most of us actually say you.

I think we need to replace "your" with X1 and "you" with X2, and make this available as a one-click response... there are so many things in these forums we can say this about! And we usually use way more words than this to do so.
 
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TheParser

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I would have said something like 1)"I heard you guys went to a pub to cut loose last night."

Did you ever hear someone saying not writing 2)"I've heard of your having been involved in an act of outrageous behaviour in a pub." I've been travelling a lot. I've never heard someone saying something like this.


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

(1) I agree with you that "regular folks" might say:

Hey, guys. I heard you went wild at a bar last night.

Actually, I think that most people would say, "I hear ...."

(When the speaker just heard about something, s/he often

uses the present: Congratulations, Mona! I hear that

you are getting married next week.)

(2) I also agree with you and the other posters that it would be

fine to say:

I heard about you guys being involved ....

(3) But I think (think!!!) that some books suggest for "perfect"

book English:

I heard about you guys having been involved ....

As I understand it, you should use a form like "having been involved"

when you are talking about something that happened before the main

verb. That is:

I heard (today) about you guys having been involved (yesterday)....

*****

P. S. The other posters have already done their usual excellent job in

explaining the choice of "you" or "your."

One book says this:

I heard about you doing that. "doing" is a participle.
I heard about your doing that. "doing" is a gerund.
This book, however, agrees that the use of the gerund
"will [usually] express the idea more neatly."


***** NOT A TEACHER *****
 

5jj

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One book says this:

I heard about you doing that. "doing" is a participle.
I heard about your doing that. "doing" is a gerund.
This book, however, agrees that the use of the gerund
"will [usually] express the idea more neatly."

Thanks for that. But, if we get started on the question of whether certain ING-constructions are participles or gerunds, we are opening a new can of worms.
 
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