Think of going out and enjoying / enjoy the wind

Question

It being a windy night, you must think of going out and enjoying the wind.

according to me ,it should have been "enjoy" not "enjoying". Can anyone please explain this to me?

Answer 1

There are two verbs here, going and enjoying, that are each gerunds and starting their own gerund phrases. They are joined by and, and each should be able to stand without the other. Exclude each in turn, and you can see why they are both -ing forms - as they must both be gerunds.

"It being a windy night, you must think of going out."

"It being a windy night, you must think of enjoying the wind."

Now, you can read the overall sentence as essentially decomposing into those two, the and asserting that both are true. Or you can make it decompose the main clause:

"It being a windy night, you must think of going out and you must think of enjoying the wind."

Or you can think of one of the gerund phrases as subordinate to the other - but it doesn't alter the fact they are both gerund phrases. As long as they are both fulfilling the same grammatical role, they will be in the same verb form.

Contrast with,

"It being a windy night, you should go out and enjoy the wind."

In that case, the two are still fulfilling the same role - they are bare infinitives. Alternatively,

"It being a windy night, you must think of going out to enjoy the wind."

In that case, there is one gerund phrase, "going out to enjoy the wind", which itself can be broken down into the core of the gerund phrase, "going out", and the adverbial of purpose "to enjoy the wind".