I didn’t get a photo, so you’ll have to trust me. A sign on the back of the Port Authority bus terminal in New York City says:
BUS TERMINAL REDEMPTION CENTER
I’m pretty sure you can’t redeem a bus terminal at this center. Other than that, I have no idea.
I can, however, diagnose the problem: too many nouns in a string.
In English, we have this wonderful ability to string nouns together into phrases that efficiently convey meaning:
- bus terminal
- redemption center
- department meeting
- department meeting agenda
- noun string
In a noun string, all the nouns before the last one become adjectives that modify the last noun. It’s a brilliant feature of our language that allows us to say a lot with a few words.
However, you can overuse this feature by stringing too many nouns together.
- The researchers modified the change management training program evaluation process.
- The XYZ project grantee manual development timeline is shown in Figure 2.
When you string too many nouns together, readers can get confused. They may think they’ve reached the actual noun — say, “program” in the first sentence or “grantee” in the second — when the string isn’t finished yet.
As a rule of thumb, three nouns in a string is enough. Readers can understand that much at a glance. If you get four or more nouns in a string, break them up.
- The researchers modified the way they evaluated the change management training.
- Figure 2 shows the timeline for development of the manual for XYZ project grantees. (Extra points for changing passive voice to active.)
If you’re like many writers, you simply don’t notice your own noun strings. After all, they make perfect sense to you! You can’t see that they are likely to confuse readers, at least temporarily. And if you do see them, you may not see a quick and easy way to fix them.
And that’s why writers need editors. We see issues that are invisible to you. Then we revise so readers can understand you quickly and easily. If that sounds like something you need, be in touch!