Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Not so bad after all …

… I Want You To Love Adverbs, Guardians Of Surprise — Beyond The Margins. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Adverbs are modifiers. They modify – which means they change, alter, amend, that part of speech to which they are subordinate. In other words, they are not unnecessary emphasizers as in, “She shouted loudly.” They don’t exist to reiterate, but to provide a specificity not provided by the verb, and therefore to shade and even alter the verb’s meaning in that particular sentence. She shouted reluctantly. She shouted, predictably. She shouted unceasingly. She shouted hopelessly. She shouted victoriously. She shouted wistfully – somehow, despite the power of her voice.

7 comments:

  1. In other words, ignore all writing advice. Think for yourself.

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  2. Well, perhaps. Good writers take advice, and they learn and understand conventions and rules before they decided to ignore advice and break the conventions and rules. Poor writers ignore advice, conventions, and rules.

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    1. RT, thanks for telling me what makes a good writer. Otherwise, I might not have ever come across your advice.

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    2. You misunderstand. I was not "telling" you or anyone anything. I was pondering aloud. You are the wrier, I am not. I am a teacher. If I offended, I apologize. As for what I presume to be the tone of your response, I will not comment. All of this reminds me of a problem in blogging. Tone can be misunderstood.

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    3. I'll be honest, RT. You haven't misunderstood my tone. It was meant to be ironic, and a touch acerbic. (As you can guess, I stopped worrying about offending people long, long ago.) What you write is obviously correct - rather too obviously, in my view. It's exactly what you read in every handbook for writers, and what is probably taught in every freshman writing class. In other words, all too conventional 'wisdom'.

      That said, ask Frank: I can be quite pleasant in person.

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  3. One forgets (ok, I forget) that such words as "now" and "today" are adverbs.

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  4. I found your blog while searching in search engines, and it is a wonderful one.

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