Illustration for Zombie Nouns: When a Perfectly Good Verb Gets Turned Into a Noun

Zombie Nouns: When a Perfectly Good Verb Gets Turned Into a Noun

ByNathan Cole

Compare:

  • The implementation of the new procedure resulted in an improvement in efficiency.
  • The new procedure made us more efficient.

Twelve words against eight, and the second is clearer. The difference is that the first has taken two verbs — implement, improve — and converted them into nouns.

What a nominalisation is

A verb or adjective turned into a noun. They usually end in -tion, -ment, -ance, -ence, -ity, -ness or -al:

  • decide → decision
  • investigate → investigation
  • fail → failure
  • agree → agreement
  • apply → application
  • reduce → reduction

The linguist Helen Sword called them zombie nouns, on the grounds that they consume the living words around them. Once you nominalise the verb, the sentence needs a new verb — and the one it gets is almost always empty: make, conduct, perform, undertake, provide.

  • We decided → We made a decision
  • We investigated → We conducted an investigation
  • We assessed it → We performed an assessment of it

Each rewrite is longer, vaguer, and has replaced a real verb with a placeholder.

Why they multiply

Because nominalisation lets you avoid saying who did something.

The team failed to check the figures becomes there was a failure in the checking process. Nobody failed. A failure simply occurred, unattached to anyone.

This is the same evasion the passive voice gets blamed for, and nominalisation does it more thoroughly — a passive at least keeps the verb.

It also sounds serious. Abstract nouns carry an air of professionalism, which is why they cluster in exactly the documents that most need to be clear.

The fix

Find the buried verb and put it back to work. Then find who did it and make them the subject.

  • The completion of the audit is expected by Friday. → We will finish the audit by Friday.
  • Consideration should be given to the proposal. → The board should consider the proposal.
  • There was a reduction in costs. → Costs fell.

Notice what the rewrite forces: you have to know who acted. That is precisely why the nominalised version was chosen, and precisely why the rewrite is better.

When they are correct

Nominalisations are not errors, and English cannot function without them.

  • When the concept is the subject. The decision was controversial. You are talking about the decision, not the deciding.
  • To refer back. She resigned. The resignation surprised everyone. The noun links the sentences.
  • Technical terms. Inflation, evolution, oxidation are the names of things.

Search a draft for -tion and -ment. For each hit, ask whether a verb is hiding inside it and whether the sentence would be shorter with the verb doing the work.

Two or three per page is normal. Two or three per sentence is why nobody reads your reports.

Checked against Merriam-Webster, the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook. Spotted an error? Tell us — see our editorial policy.

Nathan Cole writes the adjective guides and word lists on Grammar Simplified. Every guide he publishes is checked against Merriam-Webster for spelling and usage, the Chicago Manual of Style for punctuation, and the AP Stylebook where a convention is specific to web writing. Where a rule is genuinely disputed among those authorities, he says so in the guide rather than picking a side quietly. Corrections are welcome and get acted on — see the editorial policy.

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