The Absurd Adverb

You’re anxiously awaiting the response to a manuscript you dutifully submitted for critique, competition, or publication. You’ve labored extensively on meticulously selecting the most incisively erudite vocabulary to masterfully enhance your very onerously intricate literary work, unswervably certain that the readers/judges/editorial board will be indisputably enthusiastic to wholeheartedly recommend/award/publish your work.

Only, they weren’t. And they didn’t.

After you finish choking out your colon, you read their hogwash comments. Too many adverbs? TOO MANY ADVERBS? What have you guys got against adverbs?

And what are adverbs, anyway? How can I overuse them if I don’t know what they are?

Let’s start with a definition. An adverb is simply a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.

Okay, that doesn’t help much. Let’s try this. An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another word that modifies a verb, and adjective, or another . . .

Yikes, this is tricky. The definition is circular—it includes the word we’re trying to define! Can’t I just say, “If it’s not a noun, verb, or adjective, it’s probably an adverb?”

All right. Forget the “other adverb” part for now. And the adjective. Let’s focus on the verbs. To modify a verb means to make it more specific. Take the verb in the following sentence.

Fluffy Ferret mutilated the lawyer.

How can we make mutilated more specific? The subject (Fluffy Ferret) tells who did the mutilating, and the direct object (the lawyer) tells what got mutilated. But with an adverb we can specify when Fluffy did his mutilation . . .

Fluffy Ferret mutilated the lawyer yesterday.

. . . or where . . .

Fluffy Ferret mutilated the lawyer here.

. . . or in what direction . . .

Fluffy Ferret mutilated the lawyer up and down.

. . . or how.

Fluffy Ferret mutilated the lawyer viciously.

(And theoretically, I suppose, an adverb could specify why Fluffy mutilated the lawyer, though I don’t know of a single word that means, “because it was a darned good start.”)

Okay, that’s the modifying of verbs. What about adjectives? Let’s start with a simple unmodified adjective.

The relentless ferret mutilated the lawyer.

With an adverb we can specify in what manner the ferret was relentless . . .

The viciously relentless ferret mutilated the lawyer.

. . . or how relentless it was.

The very relentless ferret mutilated the lawyer.

And finally we have the modifying of other adverbs. Let’s revisit an earlier example:

Fluffy Ferret mutilated the lawyer viciously.

About the only thing we can specify here if how viciously Fluffy did his mutilating:

Fluffy Ferret mutilated the lawyer very viciously.

Is that helping? It’s still hard to explain what an adverb is without using a circular definition, but you can see how the modifying of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are interlinked.

You’ve probably noticed that some adverbs, like viciously, could modify either a verb or an adjective. And other adverbs, like very, could modify either an adjective or another adverb. That’s probably why adverbs get assigned this confusing catchall of, “modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.”

It’s natural to wonder, then, is there any one adverb that can modify all three—a verb, an adjective, and another adverb? Think about it, and I’ll give the answer in the next post.

But here’s a hint: there’s not.