People born in Russia and knowing the Russian language from birth, it seems that there is absolutely nothing complicated in it and to make mistakes in their native words is simply impossible. However, experience shows that this is only a superficial impression.
In fact, not only spelling can be illiterate, but also the pronunciation of both individual words and entire sentences. For example, many people have problems when they come across a phrase that involves the process of cutting hair to the root.
Of course, in this case we are talking about shaving and how to correctly say: “shaving” or “shaving” if we are talking about one man.
What part of the speech does the word “shave” belong to?
So, above we found out what the word "shaving" means. Now, in order to decide how to correctly use the same root word ("shave" or "shave"), you should find out which part of the speech it belongs to.
As you probably remember from school, in order to figure out the word of which part of the speech in front of you, you need to ask a question. "What to do? Shave, " "What does? Shave," and "What do? Shave."
Thus, “shaving”, “shaving”, “shaving” are verbs.
The difference between the verbs
In the previous paragraph, with the help of questions, we clearly demonstrated that the words “shaving” and “shaving” differ not only in spelling, but also in the questions that we ask them. This begs the question: "By what principle is this difference?"
Those who do not have (or did not have, if the reader of this article is an adult) problems with the Russian language at school, they know that verbs will change in gender, case, tense and number.
In this article, we are most interested in the numerical affiliation of the verb. Indeed, it is precisely this criterion that will help us figure out how to speak and write correctly: a man is “shaving” or “shaving”.
How the numerical affiliation of a verb affects its spelling
If you say or describe the action (shaving) of a single being (it can be replaced by the pronouns: he, she or it), then the question will be: “what does”. That is, the correct form of the verb is “shave”.
If the narration is about two or more creatures (replacement - the pronoun "they"), then the question is "what they are doing" and the verb "shave".
So, we already know that for a competent description of the process of cutting hair to the root, it is necessary to determine who the sentence or phrase refers to: the only person or group of people. And on the basis of this, use the desired form of the verb.
Thus, it is correct: “ A man shaves, ” since a noun denoting a human male can be replaced by the pronoun “he”.