Foreword

I have enjoyed a friendship with Michael Faulkner (Dr. Faulkner) over many years, starting when he was a student of mine during the Vietnam War era. I am certain Michael has enjoyed and appreciated the collaboration of his daughter Michelle Faulkner-Lunsford in this Power Verbs series. His writing a series of books on verbs is not a surprise to me, to some extent because he was a Marine. His military background complements the skills of a man who has led as a student, businessman, and educator. I will not forget hiking with him in the mid-1970s on the Berryman Trail in the Missouri Ozarks. The plan was to hike the trail in two days. With Mike as our point man, we finished it in one. So if I had to choose a part of speech to describe Michael, you know what it would be.

When taking into account Michael’s energy and creativity with this book’s subject matter, I recall architect Buckminster Fuller’s book, I Seem to Be a Verb. Fuller describes himself, “I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing, a noun ... I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process.” Fuller’s quote describes the author of The Top 100 Power Verbs. To get to this culminating publication on power verbs for “all occasions,” he has steadily moved from power verbs for (1) job seekers, (2) presenters, (3) leaders, managers, and supervisors, and (4) career consultants, coaches, and mentors. In all of these, he spotlights verbs as the “spark of the sentence,” selecting them for rhetorical purposes and basing this last one on Professor Barry Posner’s practices of exemplary leadership.

Grammarians, editors, and teachers of composition often argue what should be the heart of the matter for a writer. All agree that the writer needs to know his audience before putting pen to paper. Faulkner addresses this issue early when he cites political consultant Dr. Frank Luntz: “The key to successful communication is to take the imaginative leap of stuffing yourself right into your listeners’ shoes to know what they are thinking and feeling in the deepest recesses of their minds and hearts.” It’s clear that Faulkner selected verbs with Luntz’s belief in mind, “Eighty percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect.” So the reader should not be surprised to see verbs like “gin up, grapple, hang tough, hunker down, and kick start.” Getting into your listeners’ shoes and emotions is a gentler way of saying that the writer must become a sharpshooter, spotting his audience from a distance like a bulls-eye on a target.

Faulkner soon turns his focus to choosing and employing the power of the verb. This book is a verb thesaurus comprising a collection of verbs that challenge, encourage, lead, and inspire. Indeed, in some verbs, the author’s military background shines through. We don’t find “ten hut, check fire, carry on, march, and fall out”; however, we do find verbs with tails, such as “cross the Rubicon, catch fire, call the shot, deep six, draw lines in the sand, and did-a-one-eighty.” Faulkner cautions about using clichéd expressions, but some remain valuable for appropriate audiences and occasions. Other verbs—“dither, jawbone, jockey, marshal, nettle”—might be most appropriate for challenging a process or modeling a way. Others, such as “delegate, deliberate, innovate, and perpetuate,” might be more appropriate, enabling others to act.

Readers will soon tap into the energy and drive of this author. His words capture the confident tone he holds in The Top 100 Power Verbs: “It is a book that can help you choose the most powerful verbs—the spark of sentences—powerful verbs that will resonate deeply with people.”

My son is a cardiologist. He tells his students with tongue-in-cheek, “Do you know the heart is the most important organ in the body? People don’t say, ‘I love you with all my brains or my kidneys or my colon.’ They say, ‘I love you with all my heart.’” Dr. Michael Faulkner maintains that the verb is not just the heart of the sentence, but it is fire itself, the “flame” that ignites the writer’s purpose and kindles the audience into action.

I am pleased to see his passion and commitment to successful communication. As one of Dr. Faulkner’s teachers many years ago, I knew him as the recently returned Vietnam veteran looking to put his life together. Since our walk on the Berryman Trail, he has traveled a much longer trail in his successful professional career. And in this publication and series, he has provided writers with a proper tool for accomplishing their purpose. For these reasons, I am most pleased to recommend this book for your communication needs.

—Ken Boyer
   English Professor (Retired)
   St. Louis Community College/FV