5 Adjective Stacks, and How to Level Them

5 Adjective Stacks, and How to Level Them 5 Adjective Stacks, and How to Level Them 5 Adjective Stacks, and How to Level Them By Mark Nichol When a noun stack a precarious pileup of nouns is itself used to modify yet another noun, it is transformed into an adjective stack, which is just as hostile to clarity. The keyword in this case is relax: Shift the anchoring noun to precede the stack, and introduce prepositions as needed. (And insert hyphens to link words in phrasal adjectives). 1. â€Å"The lack of a secure transfer may hamper computer security incident response efforts.† The phrase â€Å"computer security incident response efforts† is just too complex: The formula for a solution is â€Å"The lack of a secure transfer may hamper efforts to respond to computer-security incidents, but â€Å"efforts to respond† is a case of a smothered verb; responses will do: â€Å"The lack of a secure transfer may hamper responses to computer-security incidents.† 2. â€Å"The company has vast experience providing information-systems security-program management support.† This sentence, with a five-word modifying phrase, is a formidable challenge, but just break it down: The noun is support, so relocate that immediately after the verb and follow it with the appropriate preposition. But â€Å"information-systems security-program management† is still unwieldy, so rinse and repeat: After the preposition, insert â€Å"program management† and another preposition, followed by the remaining phrasal adjective â€Å"security program† and the new anchoring noun, security: â€Å"The company has vast experience providing support for program management in information-systems security.† 3. â€Å"The Hong Kong artist revolutionized the Asian toy collectors’ market.† It’s unclear whether the market in question is for collectors of Asian toys or toy collectors who are Asian. Assuming that the former option is correct, when you relocate market to follow the verb, move collectors’ with it, then retain the adjective-noun pairing â€Å"Asian toys†: â€Å"The Hong Kong artist revolutionized the collectors’ market for Asian toys.† 4. â€Å"They met on behalf of the proposed redwood national park idea.† A revision of this sentence involves transforming the adjective proposed to the noun proposal and jettisoning the noun idea in favor of the verb create. However, while the new version â€Å"They met on behalf of the proposal to create a national park in the redwoods† is clearer than the original, it’s too wordy: Try simplifying it to â€Å"They met to discuss creating a national park in the redwoods.† 5. â€Å"Seventy-five-year-old US Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist was appointed by Ronald Reagan.† This style of adjective stacking, in which readers wade through a phalanx of descriptive terms to get to a person’s name, is more common in journalism than in other forms of writing, but no matter where it appears, it’s ripe for relaxation. Sometimes it’s appropriate to split the stack: â€Å"Seventy-five-year-old William Rehnquist, chief justice of the Supreme Court, was appointed by Ronald Reagan.† Often, however, it’s best to place the name the anchoring noun first, and let all the other information fall where it may: â€Å"William Rehnquist, 75, chief justice of the Supreme Court, was appointed by Ronald Reagan.† (This treatment of age is according to The Associated Press Stylebook, the guideline of record for American journalism, which generally spells out only numbers below ten. In another context, the subject’s age, spelled out unless it’s 101 or more, might be mentioned in a subsequent sentence or even omitted.) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Exquisite AdjectivesHow Long Should a Paragraph Be?Capitalizing Titles of People and Groups