>>>>What you're saying in English is "During quite some time I continued to fail to pull it up" :-)
>>>
>>>Which is actually (or accidentally) the correct meaning :).
>>
>>No, it suggests you tried but failed several times, or went to pull it out but decided against it. As in "I went to the tobacconist's every day for a week, but didn't buy any cigarettes" cf "I haven't bought any cigarettes for a week".
>>
>>Trust me.
>
>I do trust you - I just don't trust myself to learn the difference and speak accordingly. In Slavic languages there's a clear distinction between imperfect and perfect verbs (i.e. where the action is continuous or one-time) that I simply feel; in English I only know that "to be *ing" is definitely continuous, and that simple present tense usually means a continuous (i.e. imperfect) verb, and the rest is unclear. I say "usually" - because even in this sentence, "I say" is not continuous. There are too many exceptions that I simply cannot feel the rule.
>

"I say" would only be used to state that that is something you say frequently, or hold true ("I say this to him every day"), or, in old films, to attract somebody's attention, as in "I say, can you tell me the way to the station?", but no one would use that nowadays.

So, in a sense, when using a verb without the "ing", it suggests something that's done over a long time, or frequently, but not right at this moment.

e.g. "I kill people" suggests you're a mass murderer. "I am killing people" suggests you've the cleaver in your hand and bodies all around you.

"I walk to work" (never use a car or bus). "I'm walking to work" (I'm on my way now, or am about to)

>>BTW I've been reading a book about Latin recently, "Amo, ams, amat and all that" and came across a subject of ours from a few weeks ago: those English verbs that, when "ing" is added to, become like a noun, e.g. "Hear" - "Hearing". They're the neares we have in Eng. to the Latin gerund - that's the expression I was ytrying to get out. :-)
>
>It was called gerund when I was learning English. Has anything changed?

You never mentioned it during the discussion - merely, I think, criticised the fact that we have to rely on them. Strangely enough, although I went to a grammar school, and did Latin (but only for 2 years) I never came across the expression until I was watching "Goodbye Mr Chips" :-)