Are adjectives the enemy of the writer?

Duff (2010) freely available from PhotoBucket

 

The sun sunk in seconds, shimmering and hesitating just above the still waters before it disappeared for the evening.  As it faded it cast its apricot hues through the clouds which hovered low in the sky.

or

A beautiful sunset

Hello Grammophiles

An oft used adage in journalism is that the adjective is the enemy of the writer.  (Voltaire said they were the 'enemy of the noun'; Hemingway said they were the 'weak writer's crutch'.)

For example, I could say 'it's a splendidly gorgeous day today'  (which it is in Adelaide on this December day).   Alternatively, I could say 'the sun is warming my shoulders, glancing off the footpath and illuminating the leaves on the trees'.

Of course, used sparingly and effectively, adjectives can add colour and cleverness to the writing (as indicated by my esteemed colleague Brady, below).  

In academic writing, adjectives can be florid and over-the-top, weakening a set of data or a rational argument.

For example, 'numerous authors argue...'  is weaker than 'Smith (2000), Jones (2003) and Brown (2005) argue...

How does this:

'Smith's (2000) findings were a notable example of how millions of families use social technology.'

Compare with this:

'Smith's (2000) study of 150 households across three continents suggested children between the age of 13 and 18 preferred the use of Facebook, while their parents still tended to use email.'

Which paper, do you think, will attract more marks?

Can you think of more examples where actions speak louder  than words (as the old saying goes)?

Andrea

A noun by any other name

The OWL recently received an inquiry about what to call "the damned" in the following sentence:

The damned inhabit [Anne] Rice's novels.

Though "the damned" functions as a noun, the grammatical origins of this construction are not quite as clear. The usual verb-as-noun explanation, the gerund (or "-ing" form), does not apply in this instance. What, then, is the connection between this noun and the verb from which it stems?

This one is tricky, because I think it has two parts. First, "damned" is the past participle of "to damn." Usually, past participles can function as adjectives, as in "the sunken ship." But I could only find one mention of past participles functioning as nouns. AudioEnglish.net notes in very small print, "It is very rare." (http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/past_participle.htm)

Think about it this way. If I said, "the sunken," would you recognize the person, place, or thing that I am referring to? You might have an idea, but the picture is not complete. We do, however, understand the reference when I say "the rich" or "the young of this country." These types of constructions are called adjectival nouns or attributive nouns. With "the damned," those of us acquainted with Dante understand that "the damned" actually refers to "those who are damned," a construction similar to "the rich" (meaning "those who are rich"). In this case, I think "the damned" is a past participle acting as an adjective that in turn functions as an adjectival noun.

I would be interested to know if anyone can think of other such cases. In short, how "rare" (or endangered) is this species of noun?