picnic and picnicking

[SophiaM]

"A lot of people come picnicking at this beach on Sunday."

I think this sentence is correct because picnic+ing becomes a gerund but my teacher said you can't use it this way. What do teachers here think?

Thank you.

 

[emsr2d2]

"A lot of people come picnicking at this beach on Sunday."

I think this sentence is correct because picnic+ing becomes a gerund but my teacher said you can't use it this way. What do teachers here think?

Thank you.

I've used "picnicking" plenty of times in my life. As far as I'm concerned, if a word is a verb (which "to picnic" obviously is), it can be used as a gerund. That might not be grammatically true but I'm pretty sure most native speakers will have applied the gerund to most verbs at one time or another.

I would say that "A lot of people picnic (or have picnics) on this beach on aSunday/on Sundays" sounds more natural but I would disagree with your teacher's statement that you can't say "picnicking".

 

[SophiaM]

Thank you for your reply.

Is it correct to use 'come' - come picnicking? Does it sound natural?

 

[emsr2d2]

Thank you for your reply.

Is it correct to use 'come' - come picnicking? Does it sound natural?

I wouldn't use it as my first choice. I would be more likely to say "go picnicking" if I were to use it at all. However, it might depend a little on my location.

If I were sitting on the beach in question, I would probably just say "Lots of people come here for picnics on a Sunday" so if using the gerund, I guess I would use "come picnicking".

If I were somewhere else, I would say "Lots of people go picnicking (go for a picnic) on that beach on a Sunday".

It's difficult to say what I would or wouldn't say as it's not the kind of sentence I utter very often!!

 

[SophiaM]

Your explanation is very clear. Thank you very much.

So, I guess, grammatically the sentence is correct, but whether it sounds natural or not would depend on other factors.