4 ms·
"...they suspected that employing nouns (“I am in favour of the removal of settlers”), rather than verbs (“I am in favour of removing settlers”), to convey supp
by TravelAndFood 8y ago
"...they suspected that employing nouns (“I am in favour of the removal of settlers”), rather than verbs (“I am in favour of removing settlers”), to convey support for policy positions would have a calming effect."
This article is pretty frustrating. Another reason for this effect, and one I've always thought true, is that using nouns in English is often more circuitous, using more "fillers" like prepositions to convey the same idea, thus softening or obfuscating the harshness of the meaning communicated.
In other words, they don't seem to prove that nouns cause this effect, but that English's use of nouns causes this effect.
- detaro 8y agoHebrew, not English. But yes, it would be interesting how this compares between languages. I feel like this is a common pattern in many languages though. EDIT: another angle could be social status: some might perceive this negatively as bureaucrat speak or phony?
- yosito 8y agoAnecdotally, I know a lot of programmers who use hedge words to soften their code reviews. So I think you might be on to something here.