grammar - "the rustle of tires" vs "the rustling of tires": pompous or not, is there a rule, or is it random?


Scene: high school. Time: the present. A teacher went through a student's essay in which an out-of-the-way house in the sticks was described. It (the house) sat in the middle of a picturesque grove, and the nearest road other than the path leading up to it, was a highway - nearly a mile away. On a quiet day, when there was no wind, you could hear the cars on the highway. The student, going for the "poetic" effect, described that faint noise as "the rustling of tires." The teacher corrected it by changing it to "the rustle of tires." It is important to note that she was in no way pedantic, much less a "grammar nazi."


Question: is there a rule for favoring nouns over gerunds (and vice versa), or is it completely random?




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