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The rollercoaster clanks uphill. Reaches its crest. Tilts right, inches closer to the drop, the operator saying, \u201cHold on tightly.\u201d The what? Tightly? Is that the right word? Too late for grammar, the world a blur as you contemplate adverbs.<\/p>\n
Hold on tight! Now that makes sense. A punchier message. Ditto for other commands: Stay close. Sit up straight! (Exclamation mark optional.) Occasionally adverbs, those words that modify a verb, just as \u201coccasionally\u201d is doing with \u201close\u201d here, will lose their archetypal -ly ending.<\/p>\n
Nobody says walk fastly, though once we did. Even \u201conce\u201d is a ly-less adverb, along with its temporal cousins of yesterday and tomorrow. Nouns in their own rights, of course, but never needing an -ly annex to act adverbially, just like \u201cnever\u201d never does. Traffic signs say Drive Slow, not Slowly. This is the imperative voice, a municipal growl with hefty fines implicit, and ample reason to be clear. Succinct. Direct.<\/p>\n
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Adverbs can be a wild ride!<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Jacob Ammentorp Lund<\/cite><\/p>\n Away from kerbside edicts, however, or drill sergeants, we typically see adjectives (like typical) adopt their -ly guise to become adverbs. Sweetly. Fairly. Stephen King hated them vehemently, stating, \u201cThe road to hell is paved with adverbs. They\u2019re like dandelions. If you have one in your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n Evidently, Dame Agatha missed the memo, plus Herman Melville and others whose prose oozes -ly specimens. If the Orient Express isn\u2019t moving swiftly then the Pequod<\/i> is pitching desultorily, and so on. Edgar Allan Poe echoed adverbs in his Tell-Tale Heart<\/i>: \u201cyou cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily \u2026\u201d But then slowly, slowly, like that rollercoaster, English gained its adverbial peak in the 1950s, the rules blurring ever since.<\/p>\n Somehow, by silent decree, that leaner tribe of wrong and tight has received an influx of other minimised recruits. Have you noticed? Reader Leanne Campbell flagged the trend, writing, \u201cCopywriters love to eliminate the \u201cly\u201d in adverbs. Now I just see \u201cadvertise local\u201d instead of \u201clocally\u201d. What\u2019s going on?\u201d<\/p>\n Elizabeth Bennett was \u201cso near laughing\u201d in 1813.<\/span>Credit: <\/span> <\/cite><\/p>\n Plenty, in short. I said the 1950s due to Dylan Thomas and Henry Green, both British writers being masters of the flat adverb, as the reduction is known. Do not go gentle, to quote Thomas. While in Green\u2019s world, his characters spoke casual, watched weary. Leonard Cohen had a soft spot for the ly-less lyric, lending his own poetic texture. Then came Apple, with its maverick campaign of 1997: Think Different.<\/p>\n Consumers could read the slogan as a cheeky extension of Think \u2013 IBM\u2019s tagline. Yet the Apple command rang deeper than that, and not more deeply. Rogue grammar is a fond trick in Adland, a bid to add more bite. Stickability. Here the breach had viewers thinking: \u201cDifferent to what?\u201d The comparative clarifier was removed, obliging the brain to close the circle.<\/p>\n This neural tickle, plus the extra verve on the page, have helped to popularise flat adverbs in recent decades. Just as Subway exhorts \u201cEat Fresh\u201d, teens and TikTokkers will say things are real good, while you may tell your host \u201cWe sure had a nice time.\u201d Indeed, most of us are flat-adverbing inadvertent, as that\u2019s how osmotic the shift has been.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bennett, the Jane Austen heroine, was \u201cso near laughing\u201d in 1813 that I wonder if the joke is on those who carp too constant about this adverb trimming. Though one thing we should make loud and clear, or clarify loudly at least. Namely, there\u2019s a big difference between working hard and hardly working.<\/p>\n To read more from<\/b> Spectrum<\/i><\/b>, visit our page here.<\/b><\/p>\n The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. <\/i><\/b>Get it delivered every Friday<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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