video thumbnail 5:04
Beware of nominalizations (AKA zombie nouns) - Helen Sword

2012-10-31

[public] 1.06M views, 28.5K likes, dislikes audio only

channel thumbTED-Ed

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/beware-of-nominalizations-aka-zombie-nouns-helen-sword

Few mistakes sour good writing like nominalizations, or, as Helen Sword likes to call them, zombie nouns. Zombie nouns transform simple and straightforward prose into verbose and often confusing writing. Keep your nouns away from the elongating nominalizations!

Lesson by Helen Sword, animation by Bran Dougherty-Johnson.