Yasin Koç (asker) Dec 15, 2011:

Thank you, all of you! Your comments have been very insightful. You sometimes begin suspecting yourself once a text is poorly written. You have saved me from a lot of trouble.

Tony M Dec 15, 2011:

@ Asker Oh dear, then, I'm afraid the text wasn't very well written, which may certainly not be helping your translation task ;-)

Yasin Koç (asker) Dec 15, 2011:

Thank you Tony M. Your comments have been very insightful. The sentence I gave was a real one. I didn't make it up.

Jenni Lukac (X) Dec 15, 2011:

If clients understood the work involved in untangling this sort of thing, perhaps they would also understand the rates a good editor must charge to massage a document into shape. (I say perhaps . . .)

Tony M Dec 15, 2011:

@ Jenni Thanks a lot! Yes, as you say, a very common error that catches a lot of people out...

Jenni Lukac (X) Dec 15, 2011:

Nice explanation, Toni. This is one of the most common errors I deal with in copyediting, even in texts written by native speakers.

Tony M Dec 15, 2011:

@ Barbara Thanks!

Quite!

As you say, 'assurance' isn't usually used like this in EN, except in the term 'life assurance', otherwise it is usually qualified in some other way — or of course, the writer may really have meant 'reassurance'. In any case, 'giving' sits awkwardly with either noun.

It all depends, of course, if this is simply an example made up by Asker, in which case, it would be a good idea for Asker to suggest another example, or preferably choose a real-life one.

B D Finch Dec 15, 2011:

@Tony Well put! I note that the two "answers" proposed, that fail to recognise that the sentence is poorly written, come from non-native speakers of English. Also, "giving you assurance" begs the question 'of what?'

Tony M Dec 15, 2011:

Poor English The EN phrase you are using to illustrate your question is unfortunately poorly written, and seems not to have been written by a native English-speaker; this is certainly not likely to help your understanding!

Also, please note that this is not a gerund at all, it is in fact a present participle; this is always confusing in EN, first of all to identify whether one is dealing with a present participale, gerund, or gerundive!

Although logic might imply otherwise, the only real way I can see to analyse this is to regard it as if '[the whole of the first part of the phrase]" is what gives "[the end part]" — and since the primary verb is 'offer', this would imply that it is the fact of offering.. that gives...

I would, however, contest that this may well not be what the writer really intended to say, which is just one of the reasons why this might be said to be poorly written...