"nominalization" = "noun with Greek or Latin suffixes"

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

"At their best, nominalizations help us express complex ideas: perception, intelligence, epistemology. At their worst, they impede clear communication. I have seen academic colleagues become so enchanted by zombie nouns like heteronormativity and interpellation that they forget how ordinary people speak."

To Ms Sword, "nominalization" apparently means just "multisyllabic noun with Greek or Latin suffixes." Add it to "passive" ("sentence that is insufficiently precise about agency") as evidence of the attenuation of grammatical knowledge among the counseling classes (including the copy editors at Harvard U Press). Or so I epist, anyway. 

> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Date: July 25, 2012 4:18:53 AM GMT+02:00
> Subject: NYT: Zombie Nouns
> 
> 
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/zombie-nouns/?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20120724
> 
> 

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