topic: [[Writing]] people: #people/helensword created: 2024-07-08 _How communicators take strong speech and make it weak, pompous, and abstract._ ##### what is it? Nominalization is the process of taking verbs, adverbs, and other nouns, and adding endings that make them "noun-ier," thus replacing clear language with abstract and pompous language. ##### why does it matter? In the quest to sound professorial, writing becomes both difficult to understand and unpack, and difficult to read. The unintentional drive for "smart" writing causes increasingly weakened sentences and obscured meaning. ##### This reminds me of Nominalization is one of the [[counter-intuitive]] ideas in [[Writing]]. Instead, focus on starting the sentence with the the right subject, rapid subject-verb coherence, and right-branching sentences. ##### What would the opposite argument be? Don't you want to sound smart in your writing? tags: #note/idea | #on/writing | #on/communication ##### Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNlkHtMgcPQ