Noun and Verb Styles

Noun Style

“The document, “Lexapro Fiscal 2004 Marketing Plan,” is an outline of the many steps Forest used to make Lexapro a success. Because of concerns from Forest, the Senate committee released only 88 pages of the document, which may have originally run longer than 270 pages. “Confidential” is stamped on every page.

But those 88 pages make clear that one of the principal means by which Forest hoped to persuade psychiatrists, primary care doctors and other medical specialists to prescribe Lexapro was by finding many ways to put money into doctors’ pockets and food into their mouths.”

(Gardiner Harris, New York Times, 9/1/09, “Document Details Plan to Promote Costly Drug”)

This is the article I chose for the example of a noun style. I believe this uses noun style when Harris uses phrases such as “The document, ‘Lexapro Fiscal 2004 Marketing Plan,’ is an outline,” and “one of the principle means…was by finding many ways”. Rewritten in verb style, the document would outline the many steps, or Forest would find ways of persuasion. Or even just ‘persuade’. Harris shows the story through the visual clues, presenting the objects of the case and telling us what they are, for example, a long document with “confidential” stamped all over it. The last paragraph, running a whole sentence, is overly long and keeps its main point and action till the very end. It almost seems like the pages making clear is the important verb, not that Forest gave doctors money. Perhaps this is the writer’s form of a big finish, a surprise ending. A rewritten sentence might go, “Those 88 pages reveal that Forest bribed psychiatrists, primary care doctors, and other medical specialists to prescribe Lexapro.”

Verb Style

“Safina avoided becoming an ignominious footnote in history as the first top-ranked woman to lose in the first round at the Open in the modern era. Afterward, she told the fans in Arthur Ashe Stadium to serve as she says, not as she does. “Please try to see your ball when you serve,” she said, looking as if she wanted to exit stage left and keep on going all the way back to Moscow.

(Karen Crouse, New York Times, 9/1/09, “Toss the Ball. Hit the Ball. Oops! Oops!”)

I chose this article as an example of verb style. In the first paragraph, there is a multitude of subject-verb pairs, “Safina avoided,” “she told,” “she says,” “she does,” “you serve,” “she said,” and “she wanted”. The verbs are short and directly active. The last sentence could be strengthened even further if “looking” was changed to a start of a new sentence, “She looked”. The abundance of short, to-the-point verbs, that simply state the action, makes sense in a sports article, where there is usually not much debate over the actual events.