Silly question

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:

zanooda:
> Here is a sentence: "The graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical families, and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little church for many centuries".
> 
> My question may seem a little silly, but since there is an argument, I have to ask: what exactly "have dogged" that church, stories or hauntings :-)? Thank you!

Geoff:
To me, it's no contest - it's "stories".

Try leaving out this word and the sentence is meaningless. Leave out 
"of hauntings" and the sentence is gramatically correct although the 
question then would be "stories of what?".

I agree with Ali in that my dictionary doesn't give "haunting" as a noun. 
However, as a UK English speaker, I have seen it used, and would use it 
myself, as a noun.