Adverb

Towards more picturesque speech™ Go Premium James Ellroy. No truck with adverbs. George Orwell on plain English | SEC guidance on plain EnglishPlain English Anatomy™ Noun | Verb | Adjective | Adverb | Preposition | Conjunction | Latin | Germany | Flannel | Legal triplicate | Nominalisation | Murder your darlings Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Plain English Drafting Metaphor Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Requests? Insults? We’d love to 📧 hear from you. Sign up for our newsletter.

Adverb
/ˈædvɜːb/ (n.)

“Using adverbs is a mortal sin.”

— Elmore Leonard

A word you use when you can’t think of a better verb. A good writer’s capitulation.

An adverb modifies a verb. It makes it stronger, weaker, more or less specific. Most end in ~ly, but not all do: “now”, “later”, “still” “again” “moreover”, “further”, “also”, “besides”, “too” can all function as adverbs, but note how redundant they tend to be:

“I will see you later”; “I am now reading”; “I have some further thoughts” — they render phrases idiomatic, but add no semantic content.

You can make adverbial phrases, too, like “on top of”, “over and above”, “into the bargain”, “by the same token” and so tiresomely (<-- also an adverb) on.

Writing hack

Therefore, a writing hack: if you are labouring with any prose passage, try removing all adverbs, and strengthening the verbs.

“Jane struck the ball firmly through the covers and proceeded quickly to the non-striker’s end.”

“Jane spanked the ball through the covers and galloped to the non-striker’s end.”

See also

• James Ellroy