A newspaper article had a language thing I dislike. I've named it 'the noun chain.' The article was about the arrest of two men who were stealing guns out of parked cars and selling the guns on Facebook (thanks, Facebook).

Here's the noun chain:

Authorities allege the men were identified as subjects of interest in
a larger stolen-gun trafficking conspiracy investigation...

"stolen-gun trafficking conspriracy investigation" Now that's too many nouns in a row. Amateur writers think that being concise means using as few words as possible, so they produce these noun chains. But if the reader has to stop and untangle them, it's irritating and bad for circulation.

My husband, a senior geologist, has mentioned how he had to tell younger staff to make explanations longer, to put more words in. He always got a surprised look in return. =