Zombie Nouns and the Passive Voice in Writing - with Steven Pinker

Style guides often suggest we should avoid using the passive voice in our writing, but is that always applicable? And what are zombie nouns?
Watch the full talk: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYeYe2l4m7miidk
Steven's book "The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century" is available for purchase now - geni.us/fRjAJ
Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist and one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind, and human nature. He is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University and conducts research on language and cognition but also writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and is the author of many books, including The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works.
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[@Kenjiro5775]

As an engineer, if I write reports in the active voice, they are rejected by management.

[@ffggddss]

@Greg Jacques Lucifer's Jizz Gargler Except you've now dangled the referent for "engineer" - it's syntactically attached to "reports." Try: _Reports written by engineers in the active voice are rejected by management._ Fred

[@festivitycat]

Exactly, it's easy to laugh at how dumb the passive voice is, but in the real world there is an expectation (lol) that it is used.

[@feliciamoreland2367]

Engineers are to write in the 'Technical' form of writing. Is there a different in technical vs active?

[@ewg6200]

Surita Mantinubra "...that it be used".

[@ewg6200]

As an engineer, I like to start declarations condescendingly with the words "As an engineer, ...", because it makes me feel superior.

[@TheTwick]

My favorite from American politics: “mistakes were made”. Passive voice, the last refuge of a scoundrel.

[@tammcd]

My least favorite aspect of recent American politics: mistakes were made again and again ................. and again. Many protagonists, but the salient point is *mistakes*.

[@geammanDW]

Like what?

[@EsTnjui]

It's very easy to transmogrify this statement into the active: “Mistakes made themselves.” :)

[@Hecatonicosachoron]

If scoundrels use the passive, I hate to think what perversions those who omit verbs get up to.

[@andrewbesso4257]

No one actually made the mistakes. The mistakes just sort of happened.

[@bkenglandUTube]

What helps make communication most interesting is when the communicator has learned all the rules and then proceeds to skillfully bend them, or even break them, as they choose. This applies to other arts and science also.

[@caststagemysteries]

They also slip up and do exactly what they're trying not to.

[@albertbatfinder5240]

It applies to sport and games. You can win by going against the conventional tactics and strategy. But you’ve got to know ALL the rules to know which one to break, and when.

[@feliciamoreland2367]

Arts yes. Science no. To add a zest to your scientific writing, add connotations. Second thought: It maybe acceptable on some platforms, depending on your audience.

[@feliciamoreland2367]

@@caststagemysteries The writer must put in the 'work' to write an acceptional paper. It take brain power beyond knowledge of information. 😉

[@jb-sq2lm]

@@feliciamoreland2367 there is a word in my language from a linguistics book that got 3 synonyms one with good connotation one with neutral sense third with bad connotation. science is precise what anybody needed are the enthusiasm coupled with practicum like the potato hammered with knife (moment of inertia) by a female dozent in yt, 3blue1brown visual programming using raw maths in programming languages (using maths to programmed the program that shows maths illustration), or the MIT teacher about wheel and bowling bowl momentum (commenter noted the phrase paraphrased: this is with a heavy calculations [this illustration is a product of complex derivatives of alot of concepts thus don't expect easy maths of of this physics experiment])

[@feliciamoreland2367]

English lesson at a master level? Awesome! Im all IN! Thanks👍

[@anandajayarathna6149]

Thank you very much sir with all the respect for this invaluable insight into this highly debatable topic.

[@feliciamoreland2367]

Why is this debatable? The English language is beautiful with all rules applied. I have noticed the more ppl use it, the slack it has become. That frightens me. The math magicians have their numbers. Let us have our 'proper' english. 😂😂😂

[@jackal5096]

This same stuff is in the seminar and books of Robert S. Burger's "How to Write So People Can Understand You", circa 1970's. Instead of "Zombie Nouns," Burger called it "verb mutilation".

[@gayass8599]

the imagery there was nice

[@JamesPetts]

Pinker is splendidly analytic.

[@nicoladmt]

I'm no linguist but... it seems like the speaker is ignoring the prime reason why someone would use the passive voice most of the time: not knowing, or not wanting to make assumptions about the subject/agent! "A was done" is not another form for "B did A": "A was done by B" is. You can't express "A was done" in the active voice if you don't know B, unless you use "someone"

[@richardbloemenkamp8532]

Agree and Pinter knows this very well but I suppose he does not want to focus on that issue. It remains a problem though. In particular in big projects, nobody likes to take the responsibility that he or she just made a random choice to do something a certain way. So if you write: "I did A and then I did B" you expose yourself much more to questions and blame then if you write, "After A, B was done". As a second point, I suppose, is that most writers do not want to put themselves on a pedestal. "I did A and the I did B" sounds a bit as: "Look at me, I made such great and important choices". I think the best solution is to work on things with multiple people and write "we".

[@bo_392]

@Nicola you are no linguist, but he certainly is. and he explains why people do it at 10:30.

[@ZeedijkMike]

@@richardbloemenkamp8532 As I was reading through your comment I started recognizing that is how I often write instructions or help texts. I start active but then find it too 'finger pointing' and then I rewrite in a more passive tone. (Not a native English speaker/writer but have the same 'issue' in other languages (Danish and Dutch) too)

[@elizabethsetlow862]

I wish I'd known in school that I would find myself getting a sensible chuckle from a video about syntax in my spare time. It would have helped me feel far less oppressed by English classes.

[@andrewbesso4257]

3:27 That is beautiful. The academic uses the passive voice twice in one sentence to say that academics overuse the passive voice.

[@ikirilenko]

Did anybody think about one more quantum field like field of thoughts, or wishes.. i do not know how to formulate it correctly. Like electricity can make things move, or magnetic field can make things move - our wishes or thoughts also can make things move...

[@Tjousk]

Indeed

[@ostimeg]

I liked.

[@anujbangad3973]

" The *proliferation* of *nominalizations* in a discursive *formation* may be an *indication* of a *tendency* towards *pomposity* and *abstraction* "

[@WayTruthLife2100]

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you for sharpening my writing skills!

[@gayass8599]

your writing skills were sharpened.

[@danielditlev]

Read it as Zombie Nuns... 😱

[@ostimeg]

I would read that

[@jimsvideos7201]

I'd watch that movie.

[@itsdonaldo]

@@jimsvideos7201 Director Peter Jackson's first movie has a zombie nun in it. its called "dead Alive"

[@ausbare140]

this is a good case for new speak

[@ThatsMrPencilneck2U]

I've always been told not to use passive voice.

[@leifsinclair9368]

Thank for this thing.

[@CephalicMiasma4]

"Mission accomplished"

[@ewg6200]

The passive voice must be avoided.

[@subbuktek]

@@Philrc Jokes were made!

[@bkenglandUTube]

This KZbin comment block was shared!

[@HasseOrn]

This point was lost on me.

[@jeffmurphy7683]

The passive voice must be avoided as a means to facilitate the embrace of clarity as well as disengagement from verbosity.

[@feliciamoreland2367]

👏👏👏I agree. Avoided when writing learning material. Too many words slows momentum; the reader will get distracted; the reader will gain a head-ache. 😂

[@stephenmedley5844]

Zombie nouns are widely common in legal terms, laws and federal directions

[@shadowraith1]

Well done with humor.👍 :)

[@Mnogojazyk]

I wonder what Dr. Pinker thinks about the unspecified "they," e.g., "They shoot horses, don't they?"

[@rupasisanyal9967]

Passive voice vs active voice

[@ceceliarichardson8394]

🌬️

[@JiveDadson]

Also, any noun can be verbed.

[@markphc99]

Great , but old video

[@TheRoyalInstitution]

Thank you! The pandemic has closed our doors and furloughed all but a few people, so we're having to take a trip down memory lane and revisit some of our back catalogue. We have some real gems from our early KZbin days so we're actually kind of excited to show them to people who may have missed them the first time around.

[@gayass8599]

@@TheRoyalInstitution it was the best part of a quite good lecture so who are we to complain

[@ceceliarichardson8394]

🐕

[@levicoffman5146]

We think with words.

[@ostimeg]

We don't. My stomach rumbling because its empty doesn't use English or French to tell me so -- it just rumbles.

[@levicoffman5146]

@@ostimeg Yeah, but then you think with words in your head, "I wonder if there is any Chinese food left in the fridge."

[@jeffdearing4976]

Helen Sword said it better....

[@cosmics999]

This video has 690 views and 69 likes Everyone liked that

[@donikajorgo5612]

Funny he?

[@Rabbit-the-One]

Thingify me daddy

[@Hecatonicosachoron]

Objectify me father

[@percyvile]

Hey Pinker how's Epstein doing?

[@gayass8599]

mistakes were made by epstien

[@arvindraza2656]

Was this epsteins friend 😂

[@Irisphotojournal]

Most people don't talk proper, not like wot I do.

[@gayass8599]

"hilarious"

[@McLKeith]

Steven Pinker is hard to listen to. He has good ideas, but I feel like my head is being whacked.

[@ostimeg]

Really? I found him quite a good sharp talker, with no weasal words, like excessive ums, etc. Just my 2c

[@ajdc88]

at what point is he gonna just cut bait and admit that his hairdo has been terrible the entire last 20 years?

[@codyramseur]

Very wrong

[@zilgmairbe5213]

Never? When it starts falling out?

[@mariusvanc]

Steven could be a less distracting and more engaging speaker by quitting smacking his lips. Gross. Someone nitpicking others' speech should not do so from a glass house.

[@bo_392]

i didn't even notice. talk about "nitpicking".

[@gayass8599]

@@bo_392 This is like a chain reaction of "nit-pickery," ; I love it.