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Daily Writing Tip — Aug 21, 2026

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Hidden verbs are wordy substitutes for verbs. They are usually considered poor form. I.E. carry out a review --> review

— http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/wordsuggestions/hiddenverbs.cfm

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📖 Notes & analysis

Hidden verbs work like packing peanuts—bulk without substance. "Conduct an investigation into" makes a sentence heavier without making it clearer, because the real action (investigate) gets buried under a noun and a placeholder verb propping it up. Readers have to unpack the box before they find what's actually inside. Say instead "the team investigated the complaint," and the sentence moves the way thought does—subject acting, not subject administering an abstraction.

The caution: don't let the hunt for hidden verbs flatten every sentence into terse commands. Sometimes the noun form carries useful weight—"the decision" can be examined, debated, revisited in ways "decided" can't. The goal isn't to eliminate nouns but to stop using them as verb costumes. If a sentence reads naturally with the verb restored, restore it. If not, leave it be.

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