When to use big nouns
English Writing For german speakers – Part 5
In this blog series—English Writing für Deutschsprachler—I've been quite critical of nominal style. I've pointed out how writers use noun phrases to make their ideas sound more sophisticated and complex than they really are. But I've also described how writers accidentally confuse their readers because of the "curse of knowledge"—because writers forget what it is like not to know about their topic, and hence they unwittingly use big jargony nouns.
When teaching German speakers, I'm so tough on nominal style because it tends to be strongly fixed as their standard approach to writing. To help German speakers adjust their default settings in English, I dramatically emphasize verbal style because it is the best choice for most professional writing. That said, there is indeed a place for nominal style, which I'll show you here.
Let's start with a passage in German, which you may remember from your Abitur days:
Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbst verschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Selbstverschuldet ist diese Unmündigkeit, wenn die Ursache derselben nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung und des Mutes liegt, sich seiner ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. (Immanuel Kant)
In this opening passage, Kant presents a pithy definition of Aufklärung, violating every principle of verbal style as he goes:
He uses the lifeless, non-action verbs of ist and liegt.
His main verbs come at the end of very long clauses (zu bedienen & liegt).
He uses non-character subjects, like Aufklärung, Unmündigkeit, and Ursache.
His entire definition is built on long and complex noun phrases:
der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbst verschuldeten Unmündigkeit
das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen
nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung und des Mutes
Does this make Kant's passage bad writing? Of course not! But a passage in this style has a very specific purpose.
Think back to the first entry of this series, where I joked that nominal style overworks our brain's RAM and thus makes us reread a passage multiple times to get it. In philosophy, the point is sometimes to make the brain short-circuit precisely in this way so that people have to stop and reflect. The purpose of nominal style is not to get the reader into the flow but actually to break the reader's flow. It takes effort to interpret all those long noun phrases, especially when the verbs are pushed to the end. And the more effort the reader puts into parsing the syntax, the more they're rewarded with flashes of insight. (For those familiar with Kant, I daresay this style here provokes Vernunft in his reader rather than merely Verstand.)
The tableau effect
Reading Kant's passage is not at all like watching a film—a key feature of verbal style that I've discussed at length here. It's more like gazing at a painter's masterpiece. There is no explicit movement; rather the dynamism comes when the reader pauses, reflects, and uses their imagination to import meaning onto what they see. The best metaphor here may be that of a tableau: a frozen scene containing infinite interpretations, like The School of Athens below.
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Although English speakers use nominal style far less than German speakers, we do indeed throw it in at choice moments to have this tableau effect. Even George Orwell, one of the most famous proponents of verbal style, would dip into nominal style in key sentences to make his readers think:
Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. (George Orwell)
Orwell offers a definition of power, and he writes it in a style much like Kant's Aufklärung passage: the definition comes through a long noun phrase (tearing...choosing), whose nominal structure is a speed bump for the reader. For Orwell's readers too, pausing to understand means pausing to reflect.
He could have avoided this speed bump by writing in a verbal style like this:
A powerful person tears human minds to pieces and puts them together again in new shapes that they choose.
This style feels clear and informative, but it would not have the right effect. Orwell sought to give his definition the weightiness of a proverb etched into a stone monument. My verb-driven version feels like the Hollywood ripoff. Here he needs the tableau, not the movie.
Good writers of nonfiction certainly use this technique of nominal style, especially in texts that seek to persuade through contemplation or emotion. But you'll notice that it's never the default style of the best English writers. If you stay in the nominal gear for too long, your weighty proverb turns into a pedantic bore.
People mostly like to be spoken to in simple terms, in who-does-what language. Kant also understood this, and he immediately followed his dense definition with examples written in everyday, verbal style:
Es ist so bequem, unmündig zu sein. Habe ich ein Buch, das für mich Verstand hat, einen Seelsorger, der für mich Gewissen hat, einen Arzt, der für mich die Diät beurteilt, u.s.w., so brauche ich mich ja nicht selbst zu bemühen. Ich habe nicht nötig zu denken, wenn ich nur bezahlen kann; andere werden das verdrießliche Geschäft schon für mich übernehmen...
Here we see lots of short clauses driven by great character subjects and action verbs. In order for his noun-heavy passages to have the right effect, they must be interspersed carefully with verb-driven prose.
What does all this have to do with your writing?
I hope to have given a clear view of how nominal style can be used for a specific rhetorical purpose—namely, to make your reader ruminate. But assuming you're not a philosopher, politician, or poet, you probably don't need to do this much.
When you're simply describing and informing, your reader will prefer the cognitive experience of verbal style—the movie effect I've discussed earlier. This guideline covers 95% of the writing you do as an engineer, lawyer, programmer, investor, manager, academic, and so on.
So, the greater purpose of this post is to help German speakers let go of their bias towards nominal style in English. It's to tell you, Yes, nominal style can be great, but not for what you usually write in your job.
Banner image Source: Panoramio
