Adverbially yours
Recently, I watched the finals of the Jeopardy invitational tournament. The game featured the last three contestants out of an initial 27 who were crossing minds—not blades—to win a cool $150K. The guy who won the game also won the night before, thus ending the tournament. So much for any suspense. Otherwise, one of the categories in the game was adverbs. It being Double Jeopardy, these weren’t the usual warmly, fondly, or oddly. Instead, words like surreptitiously, ignominiously, and morosely.
Afterwards, I thought about adverbs and how they’ve gotten a bad rap with linguists, writing instructors, and authors. Use them not! they say. To that point, I remember when my manuscript for Message in the Bottle was ready for someone to take an initial editing pass. I managed to convince a good friend who was my editor at Fine Cooking some years ago to have a look-see. She sent back the text after a couple of weeks with dozens of corrections. She also had three suggestions. Truth be told, they were more like demands.
First, I was to remove any use of the word “journey” in regards to my wine career. “This is a serious text, almost academic,” she said, “and not a personal journal from the Love Boat.” Ouch.
Second, I had to ixnay all the exclamation points. “It’s like you’re a junior high girl texting your friends,” she said. That one cut real deep, Shrek. So the exclamation points went the way of the duodecimal dodo.
Finally, the adverbs. “Get rid of as many words ending in “ly” as you can,” she wrote. “Adverbs are like weeds in your writing. If you don’t get rid of one, they show up everywhere.”
Words as weeds. Who knew? It made me wonder if the adverbs-weeds concept was a regional thing. In which case, they’d be crabgrass or dandelions back east. Here in the 505, more like goat heads or tumbleweeds.
Once I made my friend’s suggested edits, I did multiple comb-overs through the text, taking out every journey and exclamation point, and nixing as many adverbs as I could. But I have a confession to make. I left in one journey and one exclamation point, just to be that way.
After the fact, my friend’s admonitions left a mark. From then on, I’ve been mindful of using the word journey to describe someone’s career. I’ve also avoided exclamation points like the punctuation plague. As for adverbs, they show up in the rough draft of practically anything I write (including practically). But during the editing process, they get cut down like a weed whacker gone wild.
Why do those in positions of writing authority cast so much shade on adverbs? Even the great Stephen King once supposedly said “the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Maybe it’s because using adverbs is often done so—dare I say it (Dare! Dare!)—poorly. Consider the following:
Amy whispered quietly to her mom.
He threw the bags into the corner roughly.
When she pressed "undo," the document reverted back to its original state.
And my favorite:
“Why don’t you come over here and sit by me?” she asked flirtatiously.
The last is a questionable sentence for more than one reason. First, the author should have used a descriptive phrase at the end of the sentence to let the reader know how (or why) she was being flirtatious. I’m also wondering who’s doing the asking to come over and get cozy. Maybe it’s the girl at school who’s been stalking the guy for a week. Worse yet, it could be Ms. Minge, the librarian, who’s rumored to post regularly on BDSM forums.
Adverbs, schmadverbs. To me, they’re like the Taco Bell of words. Everybody likes ‘em—but nobody wants to talk about it. I say use them to spice up your writing now and then, just like the “F” word. But know that adverbs will never be as versatile as the latter. And no, f**kily isn’t a word. At least that I know. Still, I think one place where adverbs can be effective is in the signature of an email or other communication. Here are some possibilities.
Scrumptiously yours: used to close a dinner invite from someone with romantic intentions. Like Ms. Minge from the library.
Kerfufflely yours: from someone who willingly gave you agita the last time you saw them. Your response to them might end with “pissoff-ely yours.”
Inchoately yours: ends the email from some guy in Mali who has a great business deal for you.
Passiveagressively yours: universally used by the Eddie Haskell’s of the world.
Bumfuzzley yours: from a perpetually confused colleague.
Rambunctiously yours: from that friend who’s prone to excess on weekend nights. Or any other night, for that matter.
Dawdley yours: signature phrase on all communications from the DMV.
Fatuously yours: from your high school friend who lives in a studio apartment at age 68. He still has bookcases made from cinder blocks and two-by-eights, and sleeps on an old mattress on the floor.
Boogerly yours: signature on the card your four-year-old nephew wrote for your birthday. His boogers are on it. Literally.
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