MANY of us are familiar with this conventional grammar wisdom: turning verbs into nouns — or what is termed "nominalization" in linguistics — is bad for the health of our prose. Yet not a few academics and bureaucrats think they are doing a great job by making such convoluted sentences. Without nominalization: "The job applicants are not aware of what are required by the newly created position." Nominalization can avoid awkward "the fact that...." phrases in sentence constructions with a very long noun clause as subject. Read this essay in The Manila Times: "Making nominalization work for our prose"Next, April 13, 2023: The noun-to-verb conversion syndromeVisit Jose Carillo's English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com.
