Adjective

A word describing a noun. Generally eschewed in legal drafting, but not quite as assiduously as are adverbs. While adverbs are are viewed with horror in legal circles, having only literary, but not forensic, merit. Adjectives, being more of a necessary evil, engender only distaste.

Sometimes adjectives can be quite handy, even to a curmudgeon, and in rare cases carry all the semantic content of an adjectival phrase. If you take the adjectives out of “a commercially reasonable manner” you are not left with much at all: An entreaty that parties “shall act in a manner at all times” would irk even the most punctilious attorney.