Buried Verbs
Finds nominalizations — the action hiding inside an abstract noun (“made a decision”).
Every sentence runs on a verb, and the verb should do the real work. Nominalization is what happens when you take that work and entomb it in a noun: the action becomes a thing, and a weaker verb — made, gave, had, performed — shows up to carry the noun around. You end up with 'gave consideration to' instead of 'considered,' 'reached a conclusion' instead of 'concluded,' 'is in violation of' instead of 'violates.' The sentence doesn't get shorter; it gets heavier.
The damage is twofold. First, you lose directness — the reader has to unwrap the noun to find the action, and that fraction of a second compounds across a page. Second, you often lose the agent. 'A determination was made' buries not just the verb but the person who decided anything. Passive constructions and buried verbs travel together for exactly this reason: both obscure who did what.
When to unbury: almost always in sentences where the nominalization is doing no special work. When to leave the noun alone: when the abstraction is genuinely the subject — when you're writing about 'the decision itself,' its timing or implications, rather than the act of deciding. 'Her decision surprised everyone' is fine; the decision is the thing being discussed. 'She made a decision that surprised everyone' is not — 'decided' is sitting right there. The test is simple: if you can swap the noun phrase for its root verb without losing meaning, do it.
In practice
Corporate memo
Management will make a determination regarding staffing levels after completion of the review.
Management will decide on staffing levels after the review concludes.
Two nominalizations ('determination,' 'completion') each collapse into a verb, cutting seven words and putting action back in the sentence.
Academic sentence
The committee gave consideration to several proposals before reaching a conclusion.
The committee considered several proposals before concluding.
'Gave consideration to' and 'reaching a conclusion' both hide verbs that cost nothing to restore; the revised sentence runs at half the length.
News lead
Officials are in violation of regulations that require disclosure of conflicts of interest.
Officials violated regulations requiring them to disclose conflicts of interest.
'Are in violation of' becomes 'violated' — one word instead of four, and the sentence gains tense and specificity.
Common questions
- What is a buried verb in writing?
- A buried verb is an action that has been converted into a noun — 'made a decision' instead of 'decided,' 'gave approval' instead of 'approved.' The action is technically present but locked inside an abstract noun, which forces the reader to unpack the meaning and slows the sentence down.
- How do I find nominalizations in my writing?
- Look for weak verbs — make, give, have, perform, reach, provide — paired with abstract nouns ending in -tion, -ment, -ance, or -ence. If you can replace the whole phrase with a single verb ('gave consideration to' → 'considered'), you've found one.
- Are nominalizations always wrong?
- No. When the abstraction itself is the subject — when you're discussing a decision's timing, a conclusion's implications — the noun earns its place. The problem is using a noun phrase when you simply mean the verb: 'made a decision' when you mean 'decided.'
- Why do people write with buried verbs in the first place?
- Nominalizations sound formal and authoritative, which makes them common in corporate, legal, and academic writing. They also diffuse responsibility — 'a determination was made' doesn't say who decided anything. Both effects feel useful in the moment and read as evasive or bloated on the page.
Inside Verbaria
In Verbaria's editor, the Buried Verbs flag highlights weak verb–noun pairings as you write and suggests the root verb so you can decide in one click whether to restore it.
Try it on your own writing
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- Read my writing like an editorPaste your draft and see it marked the way an editor marks it — hard sentences, passive voice, buried verbs, hedges, weak landings, slow openings, all in the text itself.
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Where it comes from: William Zinsser's case against clutter; Joseph Williams named the pattern.
This is one of the tools inside Verbaria — the writing room that names the craft while you work. Read the writing.