Details, details... wait, that's why I'm on this list! ^_^

        'slightly rusted' doesn't work for me, "rusting" is
        more active, and does not imply that the process has
        stopped.

Very true, and when I read the sentence aloud with the "rusting" gerund
(I think it's a gerund, it's been so long since I've even *used* that
word... almost 8 years now?) instead of the way I phrased it, it flowed
much more smoothly.

Quoting from _The Deluxe Transitive Vampire_, by K. E. Gordon:

  "The same '-ing' word ... may behave either as a gerund or as a 
present participle, depending on how it is used.  If you use it as a 
noun, it is a gerund;  if you use it as an adjective, it is a 
participle."
  In this case, then, the "rusting" of "rusting tines" would, in fact, 
be a participle (a verb masquerading as an adjective).

--Freemage, who highly recommends _The Deluxe Transitve Vampire_ to 
anyone who tended to fall asleep during high school English grammar 
lessons.


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