Say it direct, add no gas

Nice article on "zombie nouns" (although that horse has oft been flogged...): http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/zombie-nouns/

Some gems:

The proliferation of nominalizations in a discursive formation may be an indication of a tendency toward pomposity and abstraction.

The sentence above contains no fewer than seven nominalizations, each formed from a verb or an adjective. Yet it fails to tell us who is doing what. When we eliminate or reanimate most of the zombie nouns (tendency becomes tend, abstraction becomes abstract) and add a human subject and some active verbs, the sentence springs back to life:

Writers who overload their sentences with nominalizations tend to sound pompous and abstract.

Although, algorithmic style assessment does make one cringe:

For an operationalized assessment of your own propensity for nominalization dependence (translation: to diagnose your own zombie habits), try pasting a few samples of your prose into the Writer’s Diet test. A score of “flabby” or “heart attack” in the noun category indicates that 5 percent or more of your words are nominalizations.

[Edit:
 Nice rebuttal :)
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4095
They apparently hate Helen Sword but I am inclined to give her a pass, I do understand what she's trying to say. On the other hand, I like that they agree on my giving the 'test' a pass.
 ]

Here goes nothing...

So I finally bit the bullet, and voila! We have a blog :)
Enjoy!