Good morning, friends!

Most of the time when I have a topic to discuss that requires examples, I make the examples up. Well, I’ve been saving a bunch of phrases from the editing I’ve been doing so I can provide some alternatives to the material we receive.

This started out because I was feeling peevish. Today I’m a happy camper, so perhaps I will advise more gently. I would file most of these examples under “hidden verbs,” but I have also noticed the overuse of this formation: the ____ of ____. It’s a way of “hiding” verbs with unnecessary words.

Here are some examples:

• The application of payments
• The sharing of programs
• The tracking and reporting of products
• Support the tracking of disbursements

Can you feel the passiveness? Can you see where those verbs are hiding? Let’s look at making those statements more active, lively, and exposed!

As you can see, I’ve taken the nouns—the application, the sharing, the tracking, etc.—and turned them into verbs: applying, sharing, tracking. I’ve also gotten rid of “of,” and just used the objects alone after the verbs, “payments, programs, products, etc.”

Here are some other phrases I found that could just be clearer and more direct. They don’t all follow the pattern above, but you’ll see the phrases are padded with extra words, which diverts the reader from understanding your basic message.

For more information check out our Symitar Knowledge Base lesson:

Hidden Verbs