RSS 2.0What Ever Happened to Adverbs?
Could someone please help me investigate what happened to all the adverbs? I think they have been hijacked by “like” and “seriously” in conversation today. I mean, seriously, like why doesn’t anyone use them any more?
Every time I use an adverb, or read a story or overhear someone who has forgotten to add the “ly” where it appropriately belongs, I immediately think of two things: I think of my mom, a school teacher. I can hear her correcting my grammar if I forget an adverb right now. And then, being a child of the 70s, my second thought immediately jumps to that catchy Schoolhouse Rock tune, “Lolly, lolly lolly get your adverbs here.” SchoolhouseRock video on Adverbs
I seem to remember hearing that Schoolhouse Rock is making a comeback, so maybe younger generations have at least heard of the show and the information they cleverly put into songs, if they don’t actually remember seeing it on TV. Remember the other great grammar lesson Schoolhouse Rock put to music, “Conjunction Junction” designed to help you learn and remember the function of a conjunction? SchoolhouseRock video on Conjunctions
So if you need a refresher on use of adverbs, and who doesn’t? Watch the video above, where you’ll learn that:
“An adverb is a word
(That’s all it is! and there’s a lot of them)
That modifies a verb,
(Sometimes a verb and sometimes)
It modifies an adjective, or else another adverb
And so you see that it’s positively, very, very, necessary.”
You can also check out The New York Times bestselling guidebook, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. Grammar Girl breaks it down for readers using badly as an example, a tricky one, because you have to consider a linking verb. If you think about the meaning of the word, it is easier to know which use is correct. For example: I smell bad. I smell badly. The latter implies that your sniffer is malfunctioning. To keep things straight in this case, Grammar Girl says remember: “Adjectives follow linking verbs. Adverbs modify action verbs.”
If Grammar Girl and Schoolhouse Rock can’t help you, my mom probably can. Now let’s all go forth and bring back those adverbs!
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Verily! ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ did so much good for our generation. I’ll bet you ask 100 high school kids to recite the preamble to the constitution and maybe 3 could do it. But ask 100 late 30-somethings, and I’m going to bet you get at least 70 that can sing “we the people….in order to form a more perfect union…”
I,m old enough to remember when adverbs were liberally sprinkled throughout novels. Now I can usually read many novels without finding one. I’m very curious as to why.
Willard,
I wish I knew why, too. It appears to me that adverbs became old-fashioned somewhere along the way, and sadly it seems acceptable to the masses that they are no longer used.
I’m fine with being called old-fashioned, though. I still use them.
Heather