In Defense of Adverbs

Earlier this week, I discussed verbs in our “Parts of Speech” discussion. Verbs create the “meat” of our writing. In fiction, they move the plot forward. In articles and speechwriting, they tell the story. They’re the “do-ers.”

If the adage “90 percent of the work is done by 10 percent of the people,” pertained to words, verbs would be that 10 % in the thick of things.

Adverbs, on the other hand – they’re like the pretty yet vacuous receptionist or (so as not to pick on one gender exclusively) the boss’s son. They dress things up in the office, but few people really see the point of their existence. At worst, they weigh the company down. But at their best – we’ll get to that in a moment.

Let’s set the office stereotypes aside for a moment and explore the definition of an adverb.

Adverb: The part of speech that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.

Many adverbs end in –ly. Adverbs often come immediately before or after a verb, adjective or other adverb and describe or enhance (that is, modify) the word they go with.

Some examples of adverbs include:

Quickly
Slowly
Boldly
Very
Much
Extremely

Adverbs answer the questions: How? Where? When? Why? Sometimes, it’s difficult to recognize an adverb, especially when it’s modifying a form of the verb “to be.”

For instance, an answer to the question “Where is she?” might be: “She is nearby,” where nearby is the adverb modifying the verb “is.”

Sometimes, adverbs come at the beginning of a sentence to modify the sentence. For instance:

Indeed, her blog gets a lot of hits.

We can ask, “how?” or “in what way?” does her blog get a lot of hits. It gets a lot of hits “indeed,” which means in fact or without a doubt.

Here’s another tricky one, “Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.”

We can ask how the speaker doesn’t give a damn, and the answer is “frankly.”

How can you tell if a word is an adverb? If you can use the word to answer the question how, where, when, or why, it’s an adverb.

Adverb-free writing
Writing teachers often instruct beginners to obliterate adverbs from their writing. The right verb can often do the same job as a weaker verb and an adverb –  in fewer words. Those who subscribe to the Strunk & White credo of never using more words than necessary, those who believe in “tight writing” (which includes most professional freelance writers who work for Web or print), will delete adverbs whenever possible.

For instance, I can write: “She walked quickly,” or I can write:

She trotted
She galloped
She jogged
She ran
She rushed
She sped
She hurried

In some cases, the second group of choices, which all use two words rather than three, paints a clearer verbal picture in the reader’s mind. But I don’t think any writer will argue that there’s a huge difference between jogging, running, galloping and plain old “walking quickly.”

Sometimes adverbs work.

In cases where the adverb modifies a form of the verb “to be” or another transitive verb, the sentence wouldn’t make sense (or would have a completely different meaning) without the adverb. For instance, the sentence above doesn’t make sense without the adverb:

She is v. She is nearby.

Adverbs as Filler
The real adverbs to watch out for are the ones we  use as filler. Elementary school students prompted to write a 50-word essay but coming up short with 45 words may write a closing sentence like: I really enjoyed my summer vacation very, very, very, very much.

Perhaps that explains why so many frustrated teachers ban the use of adverbs.

Even as professional writers, we may throw in the occasional “very,” “extremely” or “much” when it’s not entirely necessary. (“Entirely” is another word we may be tempted to use.)

The Impact of AdverbsA blog post titled The Much Maligned Adverb got me thinking about this subject.  I agree wholeheartedly with Jim Adam’s assessment. In fact, I can’t add much more to the subject than what he’s said… except to leave you with a few thoughts about the impact of adverbs.

One popular phrase is often used as an example on why it’s okay to split infinitives. But everyone blatantly ignores the adverb thrown in, too! Never mind if the Star Trek crew decided, instead, “to go boldly where no man has gone before.”

What if an overzealous English teacher got her red pencil on the script and the crew was forced: “To go where no man has gone before”?

Blah.

Or, to return to our previous example, would the famous line from Gone with the Wind have had as much power if Rhett Butler simply said, “I don’t give a damn”?