On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 8:37 AM Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Take for example the word "calibration". It is a noun, but you can't > point to any calibration thing. It comes from the verb calibrating, > and such conversions are called nominalizations. > > I'm currently re-reading The Sense of Style, and it's interesting that > in Chapter 2 Steven Pinker mentions precisely these nouns, which he > calls "zombie nouns". They certainly do exist, and people use them, > but they suck the lifeblood out of prose. Take for example > "comprehension checks were used as exclusion criteria" (zombie nouns), > compared to "we excluded people who failed to understand the > instructions" (live verbs). Actually I found this video, which is more digestible and enjoyable: Zombie Nouns and the Passive Voice in Writing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS-Txm3R3v8 -- Felipe Contreras
