What have you been doing other than work or working?

Question

Hi, there!

I'm going to ask this question from a student of mine and it will be wonderful of you helping me out with this grammatical point!

Answer 1

Hi Dee,

You can simply rephrase the question as: "What have you been doing other than working?"

"Doing" and "working" are written in the present tense as verbs. Whereas "work" (although also a verb) is used in the noun form in your original question and therefore makes the question itself grammatically incorrect for that one reason alone.

Answer 2

"Than" is used for comparisons. You compare like things. Therefore, "doing" would need to agree with "working."

Answer 3

I would say advise your student to use "working" instead of work. However, activity nouns will work in this sentence format. You wouldn't want to say "What have you been doing other than sew?" instead of "What have you been doing other than sewing?" Not all verbs can be used in this way. If you can say the sentence "I do _____," and it makes sense, then you can usually use that noun in place of the gerund. For example:

I do crafts.

I do work.

I do homework.

I do embroidery.

Since you are advising a student, they should know that in academic writing, using mainstream Enlish, they should err on the side of caution and use "working." However, as a teacher, it;s important for you to recignize that English varies heavily by region and social groups. There are some dialects of English where it is ungrammatical to say "What have you been doing other than working?" Many of your students may speak a dialect of English that has different rules than mainstream English. There is no variety of english spoken natively that is not just as rule governed and sophisticated as the English we're taught in schools. Some of these variations reflect older patterns in English that used to be considered correct or influences from other languages. These variations tend to involve fewer exceptions to rules and complete paradigms that mainstream English leaves incomplete. That's because these variations are allowed to change and evolve, and language evolves towards simplicity. Mainstream English has an army of prescriptivists who fight to preserve the language exactly as it exists, which makes it harder for the language to change over time. If a student comes to you with a speech form that mainstream English deems "incorrect" or "Bad English" consider that their speech forms are not wrong, but different. Having command of mainstream English is important for academic success, but that doesn't mean that the native varieties of English spoken by students have to be invalidated in the process.