Where oh where has my little -ing gone?

I've been noticing for a while now that verbal nouns (also called gerunds), that is, nouns with an -ing ending formed from verbs, as in "I love swimming", "Spending is out of control", and so on, have been losing their -ing when used as modifiers before another noun.

Here are some examples I've come across where formerly the -ing form would have been normal:

Wait list
This is possibly the oldest example of this phenomenon, dating back to 1960, according to the OED. It is still vastly outnumbered by "waiting list" according to Google Books ngrams(click on this link to see the chart). But I think many of us would feel it rather old-fashioned to ask to be put on a "waiting list" rather than a "wait list" (or even a "waitlist", the fact that many of us write it as a fused compound now showing how very well established it is).

Bake time
Swim class
Spend categories
This one is on my credit card bill, and tells me just how much money I am spending on ballet tickets, as opposed to, say, food.
Quit strategies.
I have seen this on public health advertisements encouraging people to stop smoking. Look for it in early January!
Start gun 

The images above are, I think, quite telling. Only five years ago, Torontonians were being invited to the mayor's 2015 "skating party", but  by 2017 this had suddenly become (and for 2020 still is) a "skate party".

This seems to happen on a word-by-word basis, as I don't think anyone is talking about "sing lessons", for instance, even though "sing" does exist as a noun: "Come to our annual carol sing!" I haven't come across "shop list" or "shop bag" either.

Have you noticed this phenomenon? What examples have you found? In the examples above, where would you use the -ing-less version and where only the -ing-ful version?

If you would be interested in taking my Rollicking Story of English course in January and February, please let me know (wordlady.barber@gmail.com). It would be a weekday morning or afternoon in Toronto (let me know which days and times suit you best). 9 weeks, $280. 

Trainings, nothing more than trainings...

Feelings. 
Screenings. 
Dealings. 
Readings. 
Helpings. 
Teachings.
Earnings.
Findings.
Writings.
Proceedings.
Offerings.


Trainings.

Wait, what? 

Your reaction to "trainings" may have been, "But that's not a countable noun; you can't make it a plural".

This subject came up recently in an online discussion among editors, and there was a lot of hostility toward "trainings". The usual sorts of comments about shuddering and teeth grinding and laments about how common it is, and should be replaced by "training sessions".

Someone felt that "teaching" was also not used in the plural, and expressed gratitude for this oasis of "sanity". This despite the fact that we have evidence of "teachings" from 500 years ago:

1542–3   Act 34 & 35 Hen. VIII c. 1   Suche bookes, writinges..teachinges and instructions, as be pestiferous, and noysome.

and no-one would bat an eye at a phrase like "the teachings of Buddha".

By the way, I hate it when people use "sanity" to describe their particular usage, with the implication that any new development in language (by someone else) is "insanity".

But the most intriguing comment implied that this irksome use of gerunds as countable nouns is something new. See the (partial) list above of very common plural gerunds.

Now, it's true that "trainings" is not as well-established as some of the gerunds I've listed above, but it has become quite common in certain fields since the 1980s, and there is no reason to object to it.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if 50 years from now some editors were to comment, "Training sessions? That's so redundant! Why say that when you can just say trainings?"

What's more, this is one of these "way older than you think" usages.

1598 I. D. tr. L. Le Roy Aristotles Politiques viii. iii. 384 It appeareth, that..it is needfull to learne certaine things, and to be instructed and trained in the same, and that these instructions and trainings be vndertaken for their sakes which learn.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash