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What Is A Noun Cluster
What Is A Noun Cluster
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My favorite Doonesbury cartoon, from January 23, 1980, features a press conference. A journalist
asks Senator Kennedy a question. The senator responds with a series of strung-together phrases:
“Well, in this moment of national crisis, any second-guessing that I … er … personally, with respect
to the interests of peace. Moreover, with the … uh … unchallenged Soviet threat, the … er … grain
embargo which … uh … as far as strong leadership in this country! Now, in respect to the …” The
journalist interrupts: “A verb, Senator, we need a verb.”
That line— “A verb, Senator, we need a verb”—pops into my head every time I encounter a noun
cluster, by which I mean a string of four or more words that normally function as nouns (with the
occasional adjective thrown in). If you read much technical text, you know what I’m talking about.
Rearrange the words.
Convert a noun to a verb.
Add hyphens.
Add punctuation.
Bag it all and rephrase.
Check out these alternatives to a few of the above examples. (I guessed at the meaning on some of
these. If I were revising for a client, I’d ask for confirmation.)
a high-performance, batch-computing facility