To hug vs hugging

Hi, Janice,

@Janice posted:

Hi,

I have an ESL student who is questioning these sentences.  Which sentence is correct?  or are they both correct?

Hugging is not acceptable in my culture.

To hug is not acceptable in my culture.

I wasn't able to give him a good solid answer. Both sentences seem to say the same thing, but the first sentence seems to be much more clear.  And, hugging is a verb so it an action that is not acceptable.  BUT, to hug seems to be an action as well.  I told him that to hug is a preposition phrase (this could be wrong but the only thing I could think of at the moment), and it was awkward to begin the sentence this way.

I really feel as though I missed the mark on this answer.

How badly do I do to explain this, please?

Thank you everyone.

Janice M

From 'Practical English Usage 3rd edition, by Michael Swan, page 270:

"An -ing form ('gerund') can be used, just like a noun, as the subject or
complement of a verb."
- Smoking is bad for you. (subject)
- My favourite activity is reading. (complement)
Infinitives (e.g. To smoke is bad for you) are possible in these cases, but are
formal and uncommon.

@Janice posted:

I have an ESL student who is questioning these sentences.  Which sentence is correct?  or are they both correct?

Hugging is not acceptable in my culture.

To hug is not acceptable in my culture.

Hi, Janice—ESL students are standardly advised not to use infinive phrases as sentence subjects. In subject position, gerund phrases tend to sound much more natural.

As Ahmed has indicated, infinitives tend to have a much more formal sound in that position. An infinitive can be naturally and correctly used in a variation of your second sentence. This one uses expletive "it":

• It is not acceptable in my culture to hug.

In that sentence, "to hug" is an extraposed subject. "It" doesn't mean anything, but simply anticipates the semantic subject ("to hug"). The sentence is equivalent in meaning to "To hug is not acceptable in my culture."

@Janice posted:

I told him that to hug is a preposition phrase (this could be wrong but the only thing I could think of at the moment), and it was awkward to begin the sentence this way.

No. "To hug" is not a prepositional phrase in "To hug is not acceptable in my culture." In fact, infinitival "to" is never a preposition. When "to" is followed by the base form of a verb, or bare infinitive, "to" is simply the stem of an infinitive.

There are cases where it is perfectly natural to use an infinitive as the subject of a clause. They are just not cases that we want to tell beginning or intermediate ESL learners about, for it would be so easy for them to go astray.

• To drive buzzed is to drive drunk.
• To care for people is to love them.