Beware of nominalizations (AKA zombie nouns) - Helen Sword
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/beware-of-nominalizations-aka-zombie-nouns-helen-sword Few mistakes sour good writing like nominalizations, or, as Helen Sword likes to call them,...
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Translator: tom carter Reviewer: Bedirhan Cinar Take an adjective such as "implacable," or a verb like "proliferate," or even another noun, "crony," and add a suffix, such as "-ity," or "-tion," or "-ism." You've created a new noun. "Implacability," "proliferation," "cronyism." Sounds impressive, right? Wrong! You've just unleashed a flesh-eating zombie. Nouns made from other parts of speech are called nominalizations. Academics love them. So do lawyers, bureaucrats, business writers. I call them zombie nouns, because they consume the living. They cannibalize active verbs, they suck the lifeblood from adjectives, and they substitute abstract entities for h...
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Translator: tom carter Reviewer: Bedirhan Cinar Take an adjective such as "implacable," or a verb like "proliferate," or even another noun, "crony," and add a suffix, such as "-ity," or "-tion," or "-ism." You've created a new noun. "Implacability," "proliferation," "cronyism." Sounds impressive, right? Wrong! You've just unleashed a flesh-eating zombie. Nouns made from other parts of speech are called nominalizations. Academics love them. So do lawyers, bureaucrats, business writers. I call them zombie nouns, because they consume the living. They cannibalize active verbs, they suck the lifeblood from adjectives, and they substitute abstract entities for h...
