the desire he felt of seeing land.

[keannu]

I think the original form of 1 is 2 and I think the reson why (he felt) was positioned in-between in 1 is probably in 2, (he felt) may be misunderstood to describe not "the desire" but "land". Is my assuption correct?

1."the desire (he felt) of seeing land."
2."the desire of seeing land (he felt)"

is98
ex)Deseada is a small island which belongs to the Lesser Antilles. This island is said to have obtained its name because it was the first island seen by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage. He gave it this name from the desire he felt of seeing land...

 

[5jj]

I think the original form of 1 is 2 and I think the reson why (he felt) was positioned in-between in 1 is probably in 2, (he felt) may be misunderstood to describe not "the desire" but "land". Is my assuption correct?

No. The original, #1, is natural enough.

 

[keannu]

Do they rarely use 2? If so, what is the reason? Is the reason similar to my description?

 

[5jj]

Do they rarely use 2? If so, what is the reason? Is the reason similar to my description?

I am afraid that I am not a mind reader.

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm having enough trouble with "the desire of seeing" instead of "the desire to see". Initially I thought it was a typo and it was meant to read "the desire he felt on seeing land".

 

[5jj]

I'm having enough trouble with "the desire of seeing" instead of "the desire to see".

I didn't like it very much, but there are a couple of dozen citations for 'desire of + -ing form' in COCA, so I accepted it.

 

[emsr2d2]

I didn't like it very much, but there are a couple of dozen citations for 'desire of + -ing form' in COCA, so I accepted it.

Fair enough. One day I will work out how to use COCA. I've tried but I get nonsense results!

 

[Academic Writing]

I agree that "of seeing" is correct, but I agree with emsr2d2 that it would sound more natural to say "to see." I get 116,000 results for a Google phrasal search of "desire of seeing" and 16 million for "desire to see." I realize that Google searches are regional and that, within any given region, they include well-written and poorly written sentences, but the difference is so staggering that I think it is suggestive of the option that most people are using. "Most people" isn't always the best criterion of course, but in this case I would say "to see."

As a side note, I'd probably change "from" to "because of," and "felt" might or might not be correct, depending on what the rest of the sentence is (e.g., He gave it this name because of the desire he had felt to see land while out at sea.). There are many possibilities of course.

 

[BobK]

Another, even less prevalent option is 'desire for seeing' (64,000+ google hits). I think Columbus - who although a native of Genoa, probably spoke reasonable Spanish - may have been translating deseo/ganas de ver, and trying - hypercorrectly - to avoid 'to see'. ;-)

(Note for the humour-impaired: I know Columbus wasn't remotely involved in this noit of folk etymology, but it seems reasonable suppose that whoever was spoke Spanish.)

b

 

[Rover_KE]

The full text from which the quote is taken appears here (#20).

There is no acknowledgment of the author or the date when it was written.

Rover