Authorities on English consistently condemn the use of abstract language. The consensus is perhaps best summed up by the American scholar Jacques Barzun, a master of the crafts of writing and translation. In his guide for writers, significantly entitled Simple and Direct, he makes this recommendation [pp. 16 – 17]:
Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Follow that advice and you will see your prose gain in lucidity and force. Unnecessary abstraction is one of the worst faults of modern writing — the string of nouns held together by prepositions and relying on the passive voice to convey the enfeebled sense.
In the same way, Ernest Gowers [pp. 78 – 79], addressing British civil servant, singles out the preference for the abstract word as "the greatest vice of present-day writing." He warns in particular that "an excessive reliance on the noun at the expense of the verb will ... insensibly induce a habit of abstraction, generalization and vagueness."
The authors of books on writing often use metaphors comparing the use of abstract nouns to an infection. Fowler [p. 5] calls it the "disease" of "abstractitis." William Zinsser [pp. 116 – 117], speaks of "dead" sentences and the blight of "creeping nounism." And Wilson Follett, whose Modern American Usage is as much a classic as Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, urges writers [p. 230] to "avoid abstract nouns like the plague."引自 VII. The Noun Plague
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