-LY ADVERBS ARE GOOD
There is nothing wrong with –ly adverbs.
Nor is there anything wrong with
plain adverbs - or
adverbial phrases - or
adverbial clauses.
Because they all do the same thing.
Adverbs in their various forms are the workhorse of the English language.
They modify a lot of different things - adjectives, other adverbs, entire clauses and sentences.
Adverbs are not defined just by what they look like, but by what they do in a sentence. In other words – a word can function as an adverb here, an adjective there or a preposition someplace else. It all depends on the function of a word as to how it is defined.
To brashly abolish adverbs as useless or out of fashion demonstrates a profound and arrogant ignorance of the English language. Adverbs have been around far longer than anyone now alive and can be traced back to their Indo-European roots. Adverbs are not going anywhere unless one wishes to return language to a series of grunts.
Let’s look at -Ly Adverbs
First, some definitions for adverbs are subtle and not commonly given.
Adverbs can give an intensive quality to words they modify.
They add movement to a verb.
They add life to a statement or a verb.
They add activity and perhaps the least appreciated -
They add EMOTION.
In addition to these definitions, there are the common ones. Adverbs tell -
when
where
how
how much
how far
and to what extent (more, very, barely, vaguely).
That’s a lot by any measure.
In terms of –ly adverbs, arbitrarily removing them from a statement has a pretty consistent result - they must be replaced with two or three other words. You may even have to rewrite a sentence in order to convey the same meaning. Frequently they cannot be removed at all.
Why is that better when writers are constantly admonished not to be too “wordy”? The flimsy rationale that -ly adverbs “weaken” a verb is pure nonsense.
Ask for ten or more examples of “weakened verbs” to see for yourself. You won’t get them.
Usually changing words in a sentence is not a matter of right or wrong but rather a matter of style or taste depending on how words sound to the writer.
Good to excellent writers are those who can use words in a way that a reader wishes he or she could have thought to use; those writers arranges words so that they have a pleasing flow, a pleasant rhythm or cadence.
Excellent writers do not write sound bites. And they know language.
Here are a few examples of what happens when the –ly adverb is removed.
1- It’s dark and raining out. I want you to drive carefully. (This becomes drive with care. Two words.)
2- We approached the alligator cautiously. (Becomes with caution. Two words.)
3- The movement of people on deck occasionally blocked his view of the sea.
(Or now and then blocked. (Three words).
4- She rose abruptly, spilling his glass of wine. (Adverb tells how she arose. Abruptly gives a quality of anger or carelessness. Explains why wine was spilled. Otherwise, reader is not sure why.
5- The ship’s officers conducted life boat drills in the event of a disaster which they laughingly assured us would never happen. (Removing the adverb laughingly removes the attitude of the ship’s officers and the skepticism of the narrator.)
6- Alice’s eyes quickly swept over the group of women. (Quickly should tell something about Alice. Is she apprehensive? Calculating? Furtive? A detective? Why quickly?
7- Losing the election to this cretin was more than he could stand, but somehow he graciously congratulated him. (Is there a difference between congratulating someone and doing it graciously? The adverb makes a difference. It lends emotion and life to the verb. More, the other adverb somehow indicates he had to make an effort to be gracious.)
8- “There’s rarely anything completely honest about an election,” he said, “but this one takes the cake!” (Removing rarely requires substituting other adverbs, perhaps not often or seldom. The adjective completely is necessary. In this context, there is a difference between honest and completely honest.)
9- “But are you absolutely sure your votes were destroyed?” (Absolutely is an intensive. It could be replaced with sure beyond doubt that your votes were….That requires three or four words).
10- “Sure I’m sure. It suddenly occurred to me that the Fifth Ward alone would put me over the top.” (Suddenly conveys the picture of a “light-bulb moment.” Adds life and emotion to the verb.)
11- As he lie dying, she lovingly stroked his forehead then bent and gently kissed his lips.
(Removing lovingly and gently removes all of the emotion. Is there a difference between gently kissing and kissing? Does lovingly tell you anything about their relationship or about her?)
In these examples there is no attempt to define the action of the adverb in terms of telling where, how or to what extent the adverb acts. As has been mentioned, adverbs do more than that.
The emphasis is on what a statement says - with and without - a particular adverb. In short a writer should determine whether or not there is logic to using adverbs versus a blanket commandment that they should not be used.
More than that – what is your intent?
“Dubious Advisors” and the publishing industry in general (peopled by dubious advisors) seem to be in a one-size-fits-all race to conformity that is fatal to creativity. As they impose their personal taste on writers (editors hold the purse strings) one hears some of them blandly bray that this or that famous writer could never get published today.
That may be true, but it is also true that the first thing the mediocre do is to destroy all standards blocking their race to the bottom.
Some background on–ly adverbs
Tom Swift
Adverbs ending in-ly have been lampooned for decades. The most famous target is Tom Swift. Tom Swift was a series of books for juveniles about a young boy of that name. Originally written in1910 by Edward L Stratemeyer who died in 1930, the books have gone through a number of ghost written series, the last ending in 2007.
The authors tended to use –ly adverbs excessively. This led to an ongoing cottage industry of ridicule called Tom Swifties; puns such as the following:
“Who’d want to steal modern art?” asked Tom abstractedly.
“I can no longer hear anything,” said Tom deftly
“That’s the last time I’ll ever pet a lion,” Tom said offhandedly.
There are hundreds of thousands of Tom Swifties in circulation. They may well have helped fueled the war against adverbs that end in–ly.
Mark Twain
Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain have been recruited in the war against adverbs. Twain is reported to have said;
“I am dead to adverbs; they cannot excite me….Yes, there are things we cannot learn, and there is no use fretting about it. I cannot learn adverbs; and what is more I won’t.”
This has been heavily edited, but it is the gist of his remark which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, June 1880 according to www.twainquotes.com
But is Twain saying, I don’t use adverbs or is he saying I don’t know what they are? Bear in mind, Twain in the early 1800s, did not have the benefit of a complete public school education.
Did he use adverbs?
Yes.
On page one of chapter one of his The Tale of the Lost Land, we find these expressions – likely was mainly presently that apparently walked indolently and, as indifferently as.
The following pages follow the same pattern and as we know, Mark Twain is still a good read and a writer who used parts of speech the way they have developed over millennium.
file://localhost/Users/ElwoodCorbin/Desktop/disqus%20code.pages
There is nothing wrong with –ly adverbs.
Nor is there anything wrong with
plain adverbs - or
adverbial phrases - or
adverbial clauses.
Because they all do the same thing.
Adverbs in their various forms are the workhorse of the English language.
They modify a lot of different things - adjectives, other adverbs, entire clauses and sentences.
Adverbs are not defined just by what they look like, but by what they do in a sentence. In other words – a word can function as an adverb here, an adjective there or a preposition someplace else. It all depends on the function of a word as to how it is defined.
To brashly abolish adverbs as useless or out of fashion demonstrates a profound and arrogant ignorance of the English language. Adverbs have been around far longer than anyone now alive and can be traced back to their Indo-European roots. Adverbs are not going anywhere unless one wishes to return language to a series of grunts.
Let’s look at -Ly Adverbs
First, some definitions for adverbs are subtle and not commonly given.
Adverbs can give an intensive quality to words they modify.
They add movement to a verb.
They add life to a statement or a verb.
They add activity and perhaps the least appreciated -
They add EMOTION.
In addition to these definitions, there are the common ones. Adverbs tell -
when
where
how
how much
how far
and to what extent (more, very, barely, vaguely).
That’s a lot by any measure.
In terms of –ly adverbs, arbitrarily removing them from a statement has a pretty consistent result - they must be replaced with two or three other words. You may even have to rewrite a sentence in order to convey the same meaning. Frequently they cannot be removed at all.
Why is that better when writers are constantly admonished not to be too “wordy”? The flimsy rationale that -ly adverbs “weaken” a verb is pure nonsense.
Ask for ten or more examples of “weakened verbs” to see for yourself. You won’t get them.
Usually changing words in a sentence is not a matter of right or wrong but rather a matter of style or taste depending on how words sound to the writer.
Good to excellent writers are those who can use words in a way that a reader wishes he or she could have thought to use; those writers arranges words so that they have a pleasing flow, a pleasant rhythm or cadence.
Excellent writers do not write sound bites. And they know language.
Here are a few examples of what happens when the –ly adverb is removed.
1- It’s dark and raining out. I want you to drive carefully. (This becomes drive with care. Two words.)
2- We approached the alligator cautiously. (Becomes with caution. Two words.)
3- The movement of people on deck occasionally blocked his view of the sea.
(Or now and then blocked. (Three words).
4- She rose abruptly, spilling his glass of wine. (Adverb tells how she arose. Abruptly gives a quality of anger or carelessness. Explains why wine was spilled. Otherwise, reader is not sure why.
5- The ship’s officers conducted life boat drills in the event of a disaster which they laughingly assured us would never happen. (Removing the adverb laughingly removes the attitude of the ship’s officers and the skepticism of the narrator.)
6- Alice’s eyes quickly swept over the group of women. (Quickly should tell something about Alice. Is she apprehensive? Calculating? Furtive? A detective? Why quickly?
7- Losing the election to this cretin was more than he could stand, but somehow he graciously congratulated him. (Is there a difference between congratulating someone and doing it graciously? The adverb makes a difference. It lends emotion and life to the verb. More, the other adverb somehow indicates he had to make an effort to be gracious.)
8- “There’s rarely anything completely honest about an election,” he said, “but this one takes the cake!” (Removing rarely requires substituting other adverbs, perhaps not often or seldom. The adjective completely is necessary. In this context, there is a difference between honest and completely honest.)
9- “But are you absolutely sure your votes were destroyed?” (Absolutely is an intensive. It could be replaced with sure beyond doubt that your votes were….That requires three or four words).
10- “Sure I’m sure. It suddenly occurred to me that the Fifth Ward alone would put me over the top.” (Suddenly conveys the picture of a “light-bulb moment.” Adds life and emotion to the verb.)
11- As he lie dying, she lovingly stroked his forehead then bent and gently kissed his lips.
(Removing lovingly and gently removes all of the emotion. Is there a difference between gently kissing and kissing? Does lovingly tell you anything about their relationship or about her?)
In these examples there is no attempt to define the action of the adverb in terms of telling where, how or to what extent the adverb acts. As has been mentioned, adverbs do more than that.
The emphasis is on what a statement says - with and without - a particular adverb. In short a writer should determine whether or not there is logic to using adverbs versus a blanket commandment that they should not be used.
More than that – what is your intent?
“Dubious Advisors” and the publishing industry in general (peopled by dubious advisors) seem to be in a one-size-fits-all race to conformity that is fatal to creativity. As they impose their personal taste on writers (editors hold the purse strings) one hears some of them blandly bray that this or that famous writer could never get published today.
That may be true, but it is also true that the first thing the mediocre do is to destroy all standards blocking their race to the bottom.
Some background on–ly adverbs
Tom Swift
Adverbs ending in-ly have been lampooned for decades. The most famous target is Tom Swift. Tom Swift was a series of books for juveniles about a young boy of that name. Originally written in1910 by Edward L Stratemeyer who died in 1930, the books have gone through a number of ghost written series, the last ending in 2007.
The authors tended to use –ly adverbs excessively. This led to an ongoing cottage industry of ridicule called Tom Swifties; puns such as the following:
“Who’d want to steal modern art?” asked Tom abstractedly.
“I can no longer hear anything,” said Tom deftly
“That’s the last time I’ll ever pet a lion,” Tom said offhandedly.
There are hundreds of thousands of Tom Swifties in circulation. They may well have helped fueled the war against adverbs that end in–ly.
Mark Twain
Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain have been recruited in the war against adverbs. Twain is reported to have said;
“I am dead to adverbs; they cannot excite me….Yes, there are things we cannot learn, and there is no use fretting about it. I cannot learn adverbs; and what is more I won’t.”
This has been heavily edited, but it is the gist of his remark which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, June 1880 according to www.twainquotes.com
But is Twain saying, I don’t use adverbs or is he saying I don’t know what they are? Bear in mind, Twain in the early 1800s, did not have the benefit of a complete public school education.
Did he use adverbs?
Yes.
On page one of chapter one of his The Tale of the Lost Land, we find these expressions – likely was mainly presently that apparently walked indolently and, as indifferently as.
The following pages follow the same pattern and as we know, Mark Twain is still a good read and a writer who used parts of speech the way they have developed over millennium.
file://localhost/Users/ElwoodCorbin/Desktop/disqus%20code.pages