Tuesday, February 10th, 2004

Let My Adverbs Go!

I recently read a story from Technology Review about kids collaborating on fan fiction, getting peer reviews, etc. That in itself is cool, but then I ran across this line:

“The beta-reader service has really helped me to get the adverbs out of my writing and get my prepositions in the right place and improve my sentence structure and refine the overall quality of my writing.”

Get the adverbs out. I hear it over and over. But I have not been given a good reason why. What is wrong with this part of speech that writing coaches and critiquers have declared it anathema and excommunicated it from the English language?

Lessee. “The Elements of Grammar” by Margaret Shertzer (c 1986) defines adverbs as a “word that describe verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. They specify in what manner, when, where, and how much.” Hm. Seems like a useful little word to me. So why is it so hated?

The most common reason I’ve heard for the extermination of the adverb is “Tom Swifty dialog tags.” The writer Edward L. Stratemeyer used awful dialog tags in his original Tom Swift stories, so bad they became their own form of joke (see Badpuns.com for some examples). But come on–one writer writes bad dialog tags, and the rest of us must forswear an entire part of speech? That’s hardly fair, is it? If adverbs had access to the federal court system, they’d be suing writers for discrimination.

Another common reason for the “Bad Adverb!” cry is “adverbs prop up weak verbs; use a strong verb instead.” Choosing a strong word over a weak one generally improves writing, true, but as I reread the definition–words that describe verbs–I don’t see anything specifying WEAK verbs only. Why can’t adverbs modify those strong verbs and add still more nuance. Take a verb like “lament”–one can lament loudly, lament pitiably, lament annoyingly, etc. None of those carry the same image. Unless we believe that all verbs are weak, we should be allowed to use adverbs with strong verbs.

There’s also the problem that you can’t always find “a strong verb” to convey the precise meaning you want. This one drives me crazy: “He said softly.” He didn’t whisper, mutter, or murmur. He enuncited quite clearly, just spoke with a lower volume than usual. In this case, why should “He said in a soft voice” be preferred over “He said softly”? Anti-wordiness rules make me choose the adverb. Sorry.

The biggest complaint I have about the anti-adverb movement is that many of them can’t distinguish an adverb unless it ends in “ly.” So they will dutifully cross out “friendly” and “likely” even though those are actually adjectives, not adverbs. And this “no-ly” philosophy has a dark side: “He ran swift” becomes preferred over “He ran swiftly” even though the adjective form is grammatically incorrect in that usage. All we’ve done is whacked the “ly” off–we haven’t changed the syntax of the word: it still modifies the verb, which makes it…you guessed it.

Look, people, parts of speech are just tools for the writer’s craft. Use the right tool for the right job, and you end up with well-made work. I guess adverbs are like hammers. Everyone has one, and even a kid can figure out how to use one. Most handy folk will scoff at someone who only has a hammer in their toolbox. And if you try to use a hammer to take the cover off your computer….well, I don’t recommend it. However, for those times you absolutley, positively have to get a nail into a wall, a hammer is really what you need. And those same scoffing handy folk would call you foolish to eschew the hammer in favor of a high-powered bandsaw or a lathe.

The only rule is write well. All else is recommendation.

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