Grammar: Gerund as a noun vs a noun

[K1ngk0ng]

Dear respected teachers,

I feel awkward and so uncomfortable all the time when I have to make a decision which is correct to use gerund as a noun or a noun as in:

- It's relatively clear for the use of understanding. As we know, the verb understand has no noun form with it, so to express the noun from the verb, there is no way other than the use of understanding! Am I correct?

- It's so confusing when I am faced advertising vs advertisement as in: there are a lot of advertising images OR there are a lot of advertisement images? I am in no way qualified to evaluate which of them is correct. Likewise, I am so confused with removing vs. removal in similar context.

- I just wonder why people say "placement tests" instead of "placing tests"?

Could anyone help enlighten me, please? I'd be grateful!

[Bogdanno2]

That's a good but complicated question.
I am interested in the plural of the gerund.
Why we can say reasonings but we can't say teasings?
I read that in some instances the gerund acts as a noun, but the grammarians didn't reach a consensus on how to define it.
"A constructional approach to English verbal gerunds"
bulba.sdsu.edu/~malouf/papers/bls96.pdf
Good luck

edit: I found the answer to my question and partially to your question in the book "The Cambridge grammar of the English language" p.82 (it's a huge book with 1842 pages)

[K1ngk0ng]

Mr. Alan, you have left my question unanswered for long now. Are you exhausted to deal with the like?

I am so sorry if I've made a silly stupid question!

Please help me to clear it up. Thank you

KK

[Alan]

Hi KK,

The meaning of 'placing tests' would be tests that place (if that could be said to make sense) or it could be the action of 'placing (putting somewhere) tests somewhere'. This is quite different from 'placement tests' which suggests tests that exist to place someone/something in a particular grade or position.

Alan

PS I can't always answer every question every day/hour. It depends when I log on to the site.
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[K1ngk0ng]

Thanks a million, Sir!