and adjectives. this old mantra remains true in the facebook age : facebook posts are more likely to be shared the more frequent nouns and verbs and the less frequent adverbs and adjectives. the ratio of nouns and verbs to adverbs and adjectives in an elvis song is 3. 3. in my speeches it is 2. 7. smart ( 2016 ). in their classic elements of style ( 1979 ), william strunk and e b white write : “ write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. the adjective hasn ’ t been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place. ” all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches the behavioural dimension to public language involves speaking in ways which best connect the receiver with the sender. behavioural science has given us plenty of insights into how to do that. messages wrapped in real - world narratives are more likely to stick than those wrapped in numbers. messages which are personalised are more likely to stick than those that are anonymous. and messages that are local are more likely to stick than those that are national. these maxims have been borne out in real - world experiments. personalising and localising messages has been found to increase their reach, and their chances of being acted on, in a wide variety of public policy settings : in everything from encouraging tax payments to discouraging carbon emissions ; from encouraging school attendance to discouraging crime ; from encouraging charitable giving to discouraging sugar consumption. linguistic “ nudges ” appear to work. yet localised and personalised messages often flow less easily from the mouths of central banks. for understandable reasons, they have tended to have a national rather than local focus, to weigh the objective over the emotional, to be fact rather than anecdote - based. that is all well and good. but it does carry a cost. it is hard to engage with a building. the view from 30, 000 feet can feel a little distant. excel spreadsheets do not emote. this can inhibit building trust and improving understanding. localising the message can certainly help. here, the work of the regional feds in the us and the bank ’ s regional agents in the uk is crucial. more generally, analysis of the regional and distributional split is important for understanding the economy and localising messages about how it is performing. even though monetary policy acts nationally,

can be confident that they know the answers. what we do know so far is that there has been a sharp downwards inventory correction and a contraction of investment notably in ict which was so buoyant before, with associated declines in equity prices and in us imports. consumption growth, supported by a strong housing market has so far held up rather better than might have been expected. looking forward, on the positive side, one could point to the strong monetary policy response to the slowdown, and to the recent tax rebate, which have yet to have their full effect. there were some suggestions in recent capital goods orders figures that the rate of decline in investment spending may now slow. and the rate of inventory liquidation had stabilised pointing to a turn at some point so long as consumption continued to be reasonably well sustained. consensus opinion, or so it seemed to me, had become modestly optimistic. at least that was the prospect until tuesday and the appalling terrorist attacks in new york and washington. the immediate impact of those events was a sharp fall in already weak equity prices worldwide, and fears that the trauma would undermine confidence - including consumer confidence in the us, already vulnerable to rising unemployment. even before the terrorist attacks, the pessimist could point to the imbalances within the us economy, including the weakness of private sector savings, the overhang of past investment excesses, and the us external deficit, which would, at some point, need to be corrected. on that view one could envisage a gradual adjustment over time in which case the us might face a protracted period of nearstagnation ; or - if you were really pessimistic - the adjustments might be more abrupt, implying a period of negative growth and possible further financial instability. the tragic events on tuesday will have encouraged such pessimism. for what it is worth, while i recognise the downside risks, i remain - perhaps stubbornly - cautiously optimistic. on the immediate situation, i was immensely impressed that the federal reserve and other us agencies have been able to keep essential payments and settlements services functioning as they have, which has allowed markets internationally to continue to function. and i was encouraged that equity markets in europe yesterday recovered some of their immediate losses. of course it is much too soon to assess the lasting impact of the events of the past two days. but the fundamental forces affecting the us economy have not changed. and in terms of confidence effects, it would be a mistake to underestimate