What is the origin of "GO + VERB + ING"?

Question

The construction GO + V + ING is among one of the first things a learner is taught. Take for instance the verb swim, very often English expresses the activity in the present simple like this:

I go swimming twice a week

This construction is used with any ‘outdoorsy’ or sport activity that employs a verb, such as:

He goes skiing whenever he can
She goes dancing with her friends.
We go walking every day
They go surfing at/on weekends.

The verb GO is inflected to express different tenses such as

He didn't go swimming.
She's going fishing in the morning.
We went bowling last night.
He'd gone hunting before.
They've just gone rock climbing.

Shopping and drinking seem to break the mould, they are neither sports nor games, but you can think of them as being “outdoor” or pastime activities. You can go drinking with your mates, and while many Italians believe lo shopping is only the activity that young girls do in boutiques; people also go shopping for food etc. And nowadays, we go shopping online.

They've gone shopping.
Let's go drinking.

But GO + V + ING for the following activities is “ungrammatical” or dubious at best:

*I go playing tennis regularly. (maybe this one's OKish)

*You go working twice a week.

?Let's go criketing/baseballing/basketballing (etc.)

*He goes cleaning his car at/on the weekend.

?She goes painting outdoors every Sunday.

*You go washing up after dinner.

*Let's go eating out.

*Let's go seeing a movie.

Questions

What is the origin of GO + V + ING? When was this construction first noted?
Is this construction becoming increasingly flexible in English speaking countries?
Are the expressions go shopping and go drinking considered isolated/unique cases? I am particularly interested in hearing about activities that are unrelated to sports/games/outdoors but use GO + V + ING.
For example, @pazzo's suggestions: gamble and window shop.

'Now, don't you go climbing trees in those clothes: you go and change.' I hear. — Hugh, Jun 21 '15 at 07:33
@Mari-Lou_A, Sure, I was just adding a negative inflected form. — Hugh, Jun 21 '15 at 08:26
I see this usage to be for leisure time activities that one leaves the house to do: gambling, caroling, sightseeing, people watching, trick-or-treating, model airplane flying, cow tipping, horseback riding. That some leisure activities can also be competitive sports does not alter this. Someone competing in Olympic skiing is not 'going skiing'. Rough guide: you play sports and you do yoga, karate, etc. Play golf (golfing) seems an exception. All the -ing ones are also verbs: I golf, I drink, I gamble, I window shop, I bird watch, I horseback ride, I rock climb, (non -ing forms). — pazzo, Jun 21 '15 at 08:34
Go cricketing/baseballing seems perfectly fine to me. So does go tennising, except for the fact that tennis isn't normally used as a verb. — Janus Bahs Jacquet, Jun 21 '15 at 09:01
@pazzo Yes, I should have used the term leisure activities, a more descriptive term than "outdoorsy". I had to look up cow tipping, it seems a bit of an urban myth. I doubt you would want to tip more than one cow on any excursion :). The "gamblling" and "bird watching" are good suggestions, but the latter is still an outdoor activity. "I go people watching", do people say that? — Mari-Lou A, Jun 21 '15 at 11:13
@MishaRosnach What? "Cow tipping" or "I go people watching"? — Mari-Lou A, Jun 21 '15 at 15:25
@JanusBahsJacquet "I go tennising", I don't know about that. Do young people say: "I tennis twice a week"? What about “Shall we/Let's go lunching”? It doesn't sound terrible, but if a non-native speaker were to say this, would he or she be understood? Or would an American think they were speaking incorrectly? — Mari-Lou A, Jun 21 '15 at 15:31
@Mari-LouA I admit I've never heard tennis used as a verb; but I don't think I'd bat too much of an eyelid (if eyelids may be so quantified) if someone used it humorously. You can just go walking, though, or go carolling (at Christmas). Leisurely activities is part of it, but there is more… — Janus Bahs Jacquet, Jun 21 '15 at 15:35
@Mari-Lou: "I go people watching." The go-verb-ing combination. Well, Russian doesn't have ing verbs, so it's more like infinitive. — Misha R, Jun 21 '15 at 17:25
'I go baseballing' and 'I go tennising' are not idiomatic in English. There are zero Google book search results for either phrase, as well as none for 'go cricketing'. Yes, people watching is a leisure activity. I don't find 'let's go lunching' idiomatic. 'let's go eat lunch' — pazzo, Jun 21 '15 at 20:30
Let's do lunch is idiomatic. I'm not saying people can't start saying let's go lunching, but I'm unaware of anyone who does. — pazzo, Jun 21 '15 at 21:42
Is it possible to take any activity and turn it into an "ing" form? I don't think so. Doesn't the base word also have to function as a verb? Baseball is not a verb, so although we can say the sentence "I go baseballing twice a week," our brain will say "nope." But if I give you a word such as "shayzu" and say "I go shayzuing twice a week," you'll say "ok." BTW "shayzu" is shoe in Chinese. "I go shoeing twice a week," doesn't work in English. I think your brain steps in to say what is possible...I know that sounds obvious but in this case I think it's worth exploring. — michael_timofeev, Jul 23 '15 at 16:10
I'd say it's not all that productive a device. Collins Cobuild labels it a phase structure (along with other two-part activities such as 'stand watching', 'sit knitting', 'come shopping', 'risk trying' ...). 'Go bird-watching / carol-singing / collecting (intransitive, or 'We went collecting blackberries' say)' are non-sporty examples. — Edwin Ashworth, Jul 06 '18 at 07:45
I have just become aware of a number of linguistics papers that deal with this construction, and in particular with the question of why we can go drinking but can't normally * go eating. See my answer to this question. — linguisticturn, Sep 11 '18 at 14:04

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

The origin goes back to Old English, as far as the year 1000 or earlier (according to OED). OED gives OE (Old English) for the date section of the two earliest citations.

Definition:

With participle indicating a concomitant action or activity.

Earliest citation:

Þa eodon hi sprecende ymbe þæs hælendes þrowunge him betwynan.

_{Ælfric of Eynsham, Catholic Homilies}

Other examples in chronological order are: (OED)

eodon biddende, OE
eode singuynde, c1300
go wryȝinge, c1380
go hippinge, c1430
go walkyng, 1483
went preachyng, a1535
wente askyng & serchyng, 1548
go begging, 1615
went looking about, 1658
Went prancing, 1719
went mumping, 1775
went dancing, 1841
went sailing, 1895
went rushing down, 1930
went sprawling, 1988
went sniffing, 2013

OED mentions that the above definition is the formally similar sense of the following definition:

intr. To move, travel, or proceed (to somewhere) so as to perform a specified action, or for the purpose of a specified or implied activity.

f. With verbal noun or gerund.

(b) Without prefixed particle.

The earliest citation is from a1500:

Euery-on an hauke on honde ber, & went haukyng [c1330 Auch. riden on haukin] by þe ryuer.

Sir Orfeo, Harley

Other examples in chronological order are: (OED)

went hunting, 1658
have gone hunting and hawking, 1672
go Hunting or Hawking, 1707
go shooting of Birds, 1749
goes gunning , 1846
went gambling, 1861
‘go clamming’, 1887
went automobiling, 1915
went fishing, 1933
going camping, 1960
go clubbing, 2003

OED also gives:

(a) With prefixed a (also †on) Now arch. and regional.

The earliest citation is from c1300:

Þis child scholde wende An hontingue.

_{St. Kenelm (Laud) 148 in C. Horstmann Early S.-Eng. Legendary}

Conclusion:

It looks like this construction was first being used for actions, and then extended to activities. In OED, the earliest example with an outdoor activity is "go walking" (if we exclude the constructions with prefixed a). Then, we start seeing examples like "go hunting" starting from 1500s as sport-like activities. Although, the earlier form is with prefixed a. (go a hunting).

We are more familiar with this construction for sports and outdoor activities but it can be used with other leisure and indoor activities like bowling, shopping, dancing, clubbing etc.

What sports? It does not work for sports. Perhaps only golf, which is also a leisure activity. — pazzo, Jun 21 '15 at 20:32
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/253849/what-is-the-origin-of-go-verb-ing/253921?noredirect=1#comment554547_253849 — pazzo, Jun 22 '15 at 00:45
Could you give the modern English for the first four examples you cited, please? — Mari-Lou A, Jul 23 '15 at 14:27
Went sprawling, though it looks as if it fits in the list, really doesn't: falling over does not imply intention, rather the reverse. — Tim Lymington, Jul 23 '15 at 15:37
@Mari-LouA: I know that they are "go + verb + ing" form but I'm not 100% sure about their modern equivalents. I think biddende is begging and sprecende is speaking. singuynde might be singing. wryȝinge might be writing (or wrying?). — ermanen, Aug 27 '15 at 14:53

score 5 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 21 '15 at 15:10

5

“To go hunting” derives from an older form such as to go a-hunting. Wiktionary has an article on this a-gerund under the headline a- -ing.

Wiktionary says this prefix a- was the form on. I'm not so sure. Theoretically this prefix might derive from various prepositions at, to, on, in. Originally the word formation was a- + gerund with the unambiguous ending -ing(e), Old English -ung/-ing. Later on, when the original ending of the present participle changed from ende over inde to inge both endings developed the same form and today, at least in most textbooks, these forms are seen as participles, though gerund would make more sense, as such forms are parallel to German

Wir gingen zum Jagen—literally: "We went to the hunting".

Later this prefix was no longer used except in some dialects and in poetry where an archaic effect is sought.

edited Jun 21 '15 at 15:10

Mari-Lou A

91,183

answered Jun 21 '15 at 11:50

rogermue

13,878

Go a-surfing sounds Pythonesque. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 23 '18 at 12:06
@EdwinAshworth because they wanted to make it sound old. – quetzalcoatl Jul 06 '18 at 06:54
https://www.etymonline.com/word/on#etymonline_v_7013 one of the older meanings of on was "in" or "into", denoting direction rather than just position, and it's fairly common in compounds, such as ahead (toward the front, forward) or aloof (toward the wind's direction). – Vun-Hugh Vaw Mar 10 '23 at 08:40

Hugh · Answer 3 · 2015-06-21T22:47:59.337

First noted?
Gone fishing and Gone fishin' are in use as far back as the NGram goes.

...and here's the King James Bible (1611) for John 21:3

Simon Peter saith vnto them, I goe a fishing. They say vnto him, Wee also goe with thee. They went foorth and entred into a ship immediatly, and that night they caught nothing.

translating ‘Υπάγω ‘αλιέυειν vb + infinitive vb 'I-go to-fish.

What is the origin of "GO + VERB + ING"?

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