In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey’s Kyle Stapleton chats with Sarah L. Kaufman, Harvard Extension School instructor and Pulitzer Prize–winning critic, about Verb Your Enthusiasm: How to Master the Art of the Verb and Transform Your Writing. A former Washington Post dance critic who currently teaches writing, Kaufman shares how verbs shape action, emotion, and perception. She shows how precise word choice not only brings ideas to life but also helps leaders communicate with authenticity, build trust, and connect more meaningfully with their audiences. An edited version of the conversation follows.
What inspired you to write this book?
It was really a combination of three things. One was my years at the Washington Post as a journalist and critic of the performing arts, especially dance, where I wrote about things that were dramatic and creative. I just decided I wanted to deliver that charge that I felt in the audience to my readers. One of the goals I had as a critic was to bring readers into the experience—re-create the thrill of being there, what it was like, what it felt like. The active pictures I saw on stage inspired active language that I ended up relying on [to convey the feeling]. Over time, I started hearing from editors, “You use verbs really well,” which was kind of cool. I did not set out to do that, but it fed into my goal.
Second, I have taught a lot over the years. I’ve taught writing in numerous places—to undergraduates at Princeton University, midcareer writers at Harvard University, graduate students at American University—to people in all kinds of phases of life and careers. I saw trends in writing, including a lot of “academic-ese,” starchy, overly complicated writing. Word counts play a part in what I saw. I would say to my students, “You could really cut this paragraph,” but the response was, “Then how would I hit the word count you asked for?” Yet as a teacher, I’d much rather see brilliant writing than the [desired] word count. I started encouraging my students to do a lot of self-editing before they sent me their paper. Working on verbs was a way to trigger that habit.
Active verbs can be such a great shortcut to getting right to the point without the need for adverbs or a lot of description. That naturally promotes editing. I would say, “This whole page is written in the passive voice, and it feels very distant, like you’re not involved. Can you turn that around and make it more active?” Or, “That whole page became three-quarters of a page, and now it is brighter and more vivid.” That also made me realize how key verbs are to good writing.
Third, I just didn’t see any other books like this out there—a book about verbs as a matter of style and as a matter of craft and getting to the point with efficiency. There are, of course, lots of books about verbs in terms of teaching English and grammar books, but I wanted to really evoke these things I’ve been saying about clear, graceful, elegant, efficient, colorful writing.
How do verbs affect us mentally and physically?
The science is fascinating. I decided I wanted to see what was out there beyond my own appreciation of verbs. I talked to neuroscientists, linguists, psychologists, and cognitive scientists who study intelligence and mental processing. There is a lot of evidence that reading [text with] verbs can influence how we remember things that we’ve actually already seen, can affect how we estimate the duration of time and quantities, as well as how motivated we are to react.
All of these things are important for writers to keep in mind. A big message of my book is to choose your words with care, especially verbs. When we can appreciate how verbs really do stimulate our bodies, even in subtle ways that we may not be aware of, those verb choices become even more important.
One example is the work of Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who studies the fallibility of memory. She conducted some experiments where participants watched police videos of car accidents and were given written questions to answer based on what they saw. One group of participants read a statement that said, “Estimate the miles per hour that the cars were traveling when they hit each other.” Another group received one that said, “Estimate the miles per hour the cars were traveling when they smashed into each other.”
When we can appreciate how verbs really do stimulate our bodies, even in subtle ways that we may not be aware of, verb choices become even more important.
The second group estimated a much higher rate of speed, like ten, 15, or 20 miles per hour faster. Both groups saw the same footage, but “smashed into” shaded the memory in some way—[and influenced the group to think], “Wow, those cars are traveling fast.” Loftus found that it also prompted subjects to describe the accident as having broken glass all over the place when, in fact, there was none in the video.
That’s just one example of how scientists have presented written language to people and then measured the result. We know that “smash” and “hit” have different definitions. “Smash” is much more violent and aggressive an action. But what I find so interesting is that these verbs change the perceptions, change the memories of people when you know they’ve actually witnessed something themselves.
It is so important to keep the impact of our words in mind: the words that we use, the way we phrase things, the statements we make, the speeches we give, during public speaking.
When writing for clarity or intrigue, when is one more called for than the other?
Clarity is a base ingredient that’s always good to have. If you’re writing a novel, you may have poetic and artistic reasons for making something murky. There are exceptions for that. Yet clarity is especially important when we’re talking about the workplace, communication between managers and staff, and any kind of communications between editors and writers. Clarity is essential there. You don’t want to sugarcoat things. You don’t want to be vague, because then people don’t really know how to interpret that.
If you’re telling a story, you can use the power of suggestion. It’s very, very powerful. Verbs lend themselves to great storytelling by enabling us to show rather than tell. So rather than a lot of wordy description, we can just use some verbs to really get right to the point.
One example I think of is the “Most Interesting Man in the World” ads for Dos Equis. The script is full of incredible suggestion: “If opportunity knocks and he’s not home, opportunity waits.”
It’s a very active sentence. It’s the action, but it’s metaphorical. It leaves a lot unspoken, but we all get the message: the power of a person who indulges in that brand. I love the power of suggestion that we can create in describing actions rather than laying out an explanation.
What are the best antidotes to what you refer to as ‘jargon monoxide’ at work?
Jargon monoxide is a great description. I don’t take credit for it. Jargon monoxide really captures the effect of a lot of jargon on an audience. It anesthetizes you. It covers up the real meaning of the words in a fuzzy blanket.
Now, jargon in itself is not really a negative; it’s a neutral concept. Almost every specialty has its own in-group lingo, and that can contribute to bonding and create a sense of culture. The important part is being aware of one’s audience. Taking that internal language externally can sometimes create confusion. In the worst cases, such as when a business or an executive has to announce layoffs or things that really impact people’s lives, they use jargon monoxide to sugarcoat it. They actually speak in euphemisms instead of clear language. It doesn’t make the speaker seem like they are smart and in charge.
Jargon monoxide really captures the effect of a lot of jargon on an audience. It anesthetizes you. It covers up the real meaning of the words in a fuzzy blanket.
It just makes the speakers seem untrustworthy at worst and, at best, confusing. It’s important to just speak plainly, especially when you’re talking about actions that will have an effect on people’s lives, on investors, or on the stock market. We really need to have a sense of honesty coming from spokespeople in those situations so we can trust them.
What responsibility do leaders have in choosing their verbs carefully?
There is a morality to verbs. Verbs can convey honesty, authenticity, and accuracy, or they can obfuscate. That’s the effect of a lot of passive verb construction. “Mistakes were made.” What does that say? Who made those mistakes? That’s the classic example.
It has been written about ad nauseam. You probably heard [about passive voice] from your high school English teacher, but prominent people are still saying, “mistakes were made” in public and using that to evade responsibility.
There is a morality to verbs. Verbs can convey honesty, authenticity, and accuracy, or they can obfuscate. That’s the effect of a lot of passive verb construction.
The morality of verbs calls for us to shoulder responsibility. Leaders have a responsibility to use verbs clearly and accurately because that’s how they establish trust with us. We want to receive information, we want to understand what’s going on. We need to use it in our lives and be able to plan. We need honest and accurate descriptions without hyperbole, without hiding responsibility.
If I make a mistake, I say, “I made a mistake.” Thank you, active voice. It’s as simple as that. That active voice develops so much more trust than evading with vagueness and imprecise verbs.
How do ‘verbs give us the means to grapple with this world of change?’
Verbs describe events and the change of events. The other day, I was sitting by a stream and looking at the water. Anybody can do this—observe things and put words to the actions—while walking down the street, walking in their backyard, or sitting in a coffee shop.
While watching the water flow over the rocks, I was thinking, how would I describe it in ways that are a little bit more evocative than water flowing over rocks? Is the river “bunching itself up to get over these ancient boulders”? Is it “throwing itself”? Is it “curling itself over the rocks”?
I remembered James Dickey, the author of Deliverance—a fantastic book and powerful movie. Dickey writes about water “blizzarding” through stones. In that instance, “blizzard” is such a great word because it brings a sense of danger and threat. It’s a noun that he turned into a verb to express something emotional and resonant about the landscape that fits with the story that he was telling.
What is the most effective habit to adopt to become a better communicator?
I like the idea of telling stories. Telling a really powerful story is a good way to think about what I’m trying to communicate. When we think about a story that is fresh, dynamic, and appeals to emotions, it is just a way to really connect with people.
That’s what we want to do in any type of writing—whether it’s an email, blog post, website copy, or an ad campaign—connect with people in a way that feels authentic and that taps into human emotions, such as empathy.
Back in the ’70s, Save the Children had an amazing campaign that boiled down to a picture of a child and a couple of very short verb-centric statements: “You can save Julie Moonflower for $15 a month, or you can turn the page.”
It almost gives me chills just to evoke that again because it was so direct, so clear. There was nothing unnecessary. Someone really thought about how to make that message very, very clear, blunt, and short, yet also appeal to empathy. I remember asking my mom, “Can we send money?” The rest of the ad copy told the story of this child’s life, origins, and how you can help. But it was just such a powerful story in two sentences.
What I’m trying to deliver in this book and what I hope that readers take away is that a clear message—one that involves thinking about the verb and the action you want your readers to take away from what you’ve written—is the key to powerful communication. You start with that basic [premise], and then you can build it out.
You encourage readers to ‘defy AI with your originality.’ How can we hone our originality?
There are some useful ways to tap into AI for what it can do best, which is those kinds of tasks that would normally take a long time for a writer to research. But it’s important to first try to do some of that research ourselves. It’s important to generate ideas, theories, and hypotheses ourselves so that we can then perhaps use AI to test them. We should not rely on AI to generate ideas for us first, because we will just lose that creative muscle to think about things in our own human brains and bring them forth.
What touches people is the human heart beating inside whatever it is we’re reading—an email, a page of text, a report—and knowing that there is, somewhere underneath all of that writing, a person with sensitivity, emotions, and powers of perception. I don’t think AI will ever be able to reflect on its own existence in the way that people can, with that kind of awareness of our vulnerability and our power to share it.
Something I’m advocating for in this book is to open the imagination, refrain from using words, jargon, expressions we’ve heard a million times. Search for that fresh verb, for that true experience that you paid attention to, and share that with us. The rest of us desperately want to know that. We want to know what we’re all thinking and doing and feeling to guide us through the rocky existence that life can be from time to time. And the glory of it is when we’re connected [through writing], you’re bringing something to bear that didn’t exist before, and that’s really what I want to leave people with. Open your imagination, because the rest of us want to see what’s in there.
