Grammar!

[lukedanileah]

"When the phone rang, I was boiling a pot full of spaghetti" What part of speech is BOILING?

Also in the sentence "The scent, smoke and sweat.......", what parts of speech are scent, smoke , sweat.

Think the onset of flu had addled my brain - please help

[jno]

'was boiling' is a past tense of the verb boil ('boiled' and 'used to boil' are also past tenses, all with slightly different meanings). The other words are nouns

[jackthehat]

Man flu ???

[lukedanileah]

Thank you both and unfortunately it's woman flu (much, much worse than man flu!!

[Ice-Maiden]

Verb, and nouns - but as Jno says, these words can be turned into adjectives (descriptive words).

[violetblue]

Boiling is the present participle of the verb 'boil'.

In the second sentence, scent, smoke and sweat are being used as nouns - they can also be used as verbs.

Hope this helps.