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This is one of the New York Times writing rules.I don't know exactly what “zombie nouns” and verbs mean here. Can someone give some examples?

Rule 6: Write With Non-Zombie Nouns and Verbs

Delve into Strunk and White’s fourth style reminder “Write with nouns and verbs” by reading about what Helen Sword calls “Zombie Nouns”:

Nouns formed from other parts of speech are called nominalizations. Academics love them; so do lawyers, bureaucrats and business writers. I call them “zombie nouns” because they cannibalize active verbs, suck the lifeblood from adjectives and substitute abstract entities for human beings.

Fight those nasty zombie nouns with vivacious verbs.

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    See the Wikipedia article on Nominalization, which includes the text: “From the viewpoint of linguistic prescriptivism, nominalizations are considered to make sentences more difficult to follow and to promote wordiness. For these reasons, nominalisations are usually discouraged in writing.”
    – tchrist ♦
    Aug 3, 2013 at 2:53
  • I think this is General Reference. Even though the term zombie nouns (and Helen Sword's disapproval of them) aren't exactly common knowledge, as Wendikidd's answer points out, the very newspaper article OP cites includes the full definition anyway.
    – FumbleFingers
    Aug 3, 2013 at 3:22
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    Nominalization is a nominalization -- avoid it.
    – Kris
    Aug 3, 2013 at 7:30
  • Why exactly does she call them "zombie nouns" and not "zombies"? Explain that, please.
    – SAH
    Aug 29, 2017 at 1:32

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The New York Times article from which you quoted offers several examples and a definition:

Take an adjective (implacable) or a verb (calibrate) or even another noun (crony) and add a suffix like ity, tion or ism. You’ve created a new noun: implacability, calibration, cronyism. Sounds impressive, right?

What the writer is saying is that these so-called "zombie nouns" are overcomplicated and take away from language (in the writer's opinion). They specifically focus on the fact that they take away from verb usage. Another example from that article:

Zombie nouns do their worst damage when they gather in jargon-generating packs and infect every noun, verb and adjective in sight: globe becomes global becomes globalize becomes globalization. The grandfather of all nominalizations, antidisestablishmentarianism, potentially contains at least two verbs, three adjectives and six other nouns.

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  • How to "Fight those nasty zombie nouns with vivacious verbs."?
    – user49021
    Aug 2, 2013 at 23:47
  • @user49021 Here's an attempt at fighting. Look at the Wikipedia example quoted in tchrist's comment on the question. Replace it with something like "Nominalizations glop up your sentences and annoy your readers. Avoid them." (Surely others can fight better, but this is what immediately came to my mind.)
    – Andreas Blass
    Aug 3, 2013 at 3:18
  • None among implacability, calibration, cronyism is a Helen Sword zombie-noun.
    – Kris
    Aug 3, 2013 at 7:26
  • @Kris: implacability and cronyism certainly are.
    – Peter Shor
    Aug 3, 2013 at 15:34

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