What is Figurative Language? It’s the use of words in nonliteral ways: Personification & Metaphor Examples: “Your government is working night and day to repel this virus, and we will succeed, just as this country has seen off every alien invader for the last thousand years” (Boris Johnson) a tool writers, speakers, knowledge workers . ...
In our daily speech and in rough drafts, we tend to rely heavily on the various forms of the verb to be. The verb to be is unlike any other verb because it is inert–that is, it doesn’t show any action. For example, in the sentence “The researcher is a professor at Duke” the verb is merely connects ...
When used in moderation, prepositions are invaluable: they work as connecting words, linking the object of the preposition to a word that appears earlier in the sentence. Like linking verbs, however, prepositions do not convey action, nor do they subordinate one thought to another. Instead, they merely link chunks of meaning that readers must gather together in order to understand the sentence.
You can imbue your language with a sense of vigor by eliminating unnecessary nouns and choosing powerful verbs. When editing, consider changing Latinated nouns--that is, nouns that end with -ance, -ing, -ion, -tion, or -ment into verbs.
