Here’s a good example of bad writing from the world of government:

 …a substantial measure of administrative flexibility to draft the price regulatory mechanism in a manner designed to optimize production from domestic properties subject to statutory parameter requiring the regulatory pattern to prevent prices from exceeding a maximum weighted average[1].

Say what? Here’s one from business:

 An accreditation analysis was conducted of the performance level of the administration of the senior executive compensation disbursement mechanism[2].

Painful passages like these are surprisingly common among politicians and professionals. They are hard to read and even more difficult to understand.

One of the problems these passages illustrate is what some call nominalization. William Zinsser, in his excellent book, On Writing Well, calls it “creeping nounism.” It is the tendency to prefer nouns over verbs.  At its worst, nominalization results in stringing together multiple nouns into a bewildering chain of modifiers:

 the senior executive compensation disbursement mechanism

 This would be much clearer by inserting some prepositions and verbs:

 the mechanism for disbursing compensation to senior executives

Isn’t that a little easier on the tongue (and the brain)?

For some reason, writers intent on writing in a “professional” or “academic” tone end up fixated on nouns. Instead of writing “I analyzed the data,” they write, “A data analysis was performed.” Instead of “Tommy explained,” they prefer, “Tommy gave an explanation.”

Beware nominalization. Verbs give life and movement to your writing. When given an option between a verb and a noun—take the verb.

verb	nominalization
argue	argument
describe	description
publish	publication
direct	direction
advise	advice
plagiarize	plagiarism
evaluate	evaluation
meditate	meditation
behave	behavior
reveal	revelation
distort	distortion

One reason nominalization makes for flat, bland writing is that it leaves out people. Nobody does anything in a sentence like: “Taxation is subject to the potentiality of intentional misrepresentation.” It’s both clearer and more interesting to say, “I am tempted to cheat on my taxes.” Good writing contains actions and actors.

To be sure you have not fallen into this bad habit, count the number of –tion words your writing contains. The bigger the number, the more likely your writing has succumbed to creeping nounism.

Nobody goes broke now; we have money problem areas. It no longer rains; we have precipitation activity or a thunderstorm probability situation. Please, let it rain.   –William Zinsser, On Writing Well

Of course, we like to do the opposite too and turn perfectly good nouns into verbs. I wrote about this idea of “verbification” in this post last September: Verbing Weirds Language. Thanks to Ben for the reminder!