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Ability of adapting or ability to adapt

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by hai1 » Fri Jan 15, 2010 11:14 am
It sounds much better to use Ability to adapt, but is it a wrong idiom to use "ability of adapting as used in the below SC example.

Though subkect to wild -animal control efforts, the coyote's amazing ability of adapting to the presence of humans as enabled it to expand its range.

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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Fri Jan 15, 2010 11:44 am
Ability has to be followed by an infinitive.

Example:

Correct: She has the ability to sing

Incorrect: She has the ability of singing well.
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by fibbonnaci » Fri Jan 15, 2010 11:47 am
hai1 wrote:It sounds much better to use Ability to adapt, but is it a wrong idiom to use "ability of adapting as used in the below SC example.

Though subkect to wild -animal control efforts, the coyote's amazing ability of adapting to the presence of humans as enabled it to expand its range.

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Hai1,
I second osirus0830's explanation.
'Ability of' is incorrect.
The correct idiom is ' Ability to'

Also IMO i think the sentence misplaced a 'has'- a verb for 'as' - a comparison. Correct me if i am wrong!
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