Word Shots, The Podcast

Those zombie, empty nouns that don't stand for any real thing—how do they creep into our writing? Listen to the episode here: OR SUBSCRIBE to Word Shots in iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Full Transcript Last week I talked about how much our writing is strengthened when we replace abstract subjects with concrete ones capable of actually performing actions, and then use those actions as our primary verbs. Next week, we’ll look at some strategies for doing that. But first, let’s talk about what those abstract nouns are called, and how they arise. This will help us understand which ones are the worst offenders. Then we’ll know how to tell which ones to leave alone. Page 1: The Dreadful Word Nominalization Stands for a Dreadful Thing. Those abstract nouns that find their way into subject and object positions have a technical name among linguists: they’re called nominalizations. That is, they’re some word that’s normally not a noun, but been turned into one. There are three parts of speech that get nomin