Untangle confusing noun strings to make your meaning clearer
Tags: noun strings, nouns
We all know what a noun is, right? It’s a word that names a thing — whether concrete (like ‘table’ or ‘apple’) or abstract (like ‘project’ or ‘idea’).
A ‘noun string’ is several nouns or adjectives (describing words) all in a row. Every word in the row adds to the meaning of the final noun. Here are some examples:
response performance problem
human resource development project
draft native flora protection regulations
single comb leghorn pathogen free chickens
real time ultrasonographic blood flow detection techniques
pre-approved credit card credit limit increase acceptance form
As you can see, the longer the noun string, the harder it is to read and the less sense it seems to make. If you care about your reader, you’ll avoid writing long noun strings.
Untangle noun strings to help your reader
Untangling noun strings is easy:
- Reorder the string, starting with the word on the right-hand end
- Change at least one of the nouns to a verb (an action word)
- Add any little words you need so that everything makes sense
Check out some examples
The verbs are in bold.
people’s rights promotion rally
rally to promote people’s rights
Image by Neil Cooler / CC BY
healthy eating education programme
programme to educate people about eating healthily
university student health and wellbeing monitoring scheme
scheme to monitor the health and wellbeing of university students
Image by Francisco Osorio / CC BY
independent child school travel safety improvement report
report on improving the safety of children travelling independently to school
Thank you! Nice trick to help add clarity. When you’re a writer you can spot strings. If you are not a writer then seeing and understanding how noun strings slow and frustrate a new reader’s comprehension is not so easy.
Thanks Miles. Yes, spotting noun strings is tricky at first, but once you know how you see them everywhere. Happy untangling!