9.6 Avoid certain well-known vague nouns and verbs
The words below are lurking in the corners of your vocabularies. When you are struggling to find a precise word, they will leap out. They leap so readily because they fit almost anywhere, so vague are they.
The words in the left-hand column above could be said to make up "The Fat Noun Blues." For instance, "The company's cash flow position may be adversely affected in a competitive environment . . ." could perhaps be rewritten as "Competition could drain the company's cash." I say "could perhaps be rewritten" because I can never really know what was in the writer's mind if the writing is vague.
Vague nouns and verbs may lead to an ambiguity that some consider appropriate, and even attractive, in poetry, but not, for instance, in financial analysis.
==>Guidelines ==>Inflation