Confusion of adjectives and adverbs

By Ranjana S.

A sentence that snares at you- "My father treats me real cruel when I shout too loud."

This sentence is incorrect because the writer has confused his adjectives and adverbs.

We know that adjectives and adverbs are modifiers--that is, they are words which describe other words and thus change or modify the other words' meanings.

Let us recapitulate the rule--Adjectives modify nouns or pronouns; adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. In most cases, too, the rule is easy to follow.

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We say -

§  "Peter is a wise man."

§   "Raima is a happy woman."

Here, 'wise' and 'happy' describe the nouns 'man' and 'woman'. They are adjectives.

We also quote-

§  "Peter faced the vicissitudes bravely."

§   "Raima smiled happily."

Here, 'bravely' and 'happily' describe the verbs 'faced' and 'smiled'. They are adverbs.

These are the most basic forms, uses, and placements of adjectives and adverbs, and may cause some hurdles.There are several common situations, however, in which such offences are made. This mistake is--when an adjective is used instead of an adverb, or an adverb is used instead of an adjective. The reasons are mentioned below:

(a). The sentence is formulated in such a way that the adverb is placed closer to a noun or a pronoun than to the verb it modifies; as a result, the writer is misled to use an adjective instead of an adverb.

§  Maria treated her brother cruel.

§  We saw the snake clear before it slithered away.

In the aforementioned illustrations, the words 'cruel' and 'clear' explain how Maria treated her brother and how we saw the snake. They do not describe the brother and the snake. We will never make this mistake if we remember that adverbs often answer the questions how?, when?,where?,etc.,even when they follow noun instead of a verb. 

The aforementioned illustrations can be like these:

§  Maria treated her brother cruelly.

§  We saw the snake clearly before it slithered away.

(b). Most writers forget that adverbs modify adjectives and verbs as well. Hence, the following sentences are incorrect:

§  Maria is real cruel to her brother.

§  You have to be awful brave to fight the tigress.

§  It was plain thoughtless of him to forget his son at the park.

Really cruel, awfully brave and plainly thoughtless would be the correct expressions in the above sentences. It is bad grammar to modify an adjective with an adjective. Anyone who is in command of the language can't afford to commit such mistake.

(c). A more frequent reason for confusion stems from the fact that there is one kind of verb that should usually be followed by an adjective rather than an adverb. Not realizing thus, many speakers and writers use adverbs instead of adjectives with these verbs( thus potraying their glaring lack of word power). Consider the following sentences. Are they correct or incorrect?

§  These roses smell well.

§  Cynthia looks gorgeously in the red attire.

§  That orchestra sounded too loudly for my ears.

§  The eggs tasted rottenly this morning.

Kindly note that the verbs in these sentences are descriptive of the action of the five senses- sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Such verbs are generally followed by adjectives, because it is not the verb that is being described; it is the subject. Thus, it is Cynthia who looks gorgeous, the roses that smell good, and so on.

To clarify this distinction, think for a moment about the difference between The dog smells bad and The dogs smell badly. In the first sentence, the dog has a bad odor, whereas in the second sentence his sense of smell is poor. In other words, the adjective bad modifies the noun dog, but the adverb badly modifies the verb smells. Only if you want to say that the dog has a poor sense of smell can you say that he smells badly. Eggs have no sense of taste; therefore they can only taste rotten. Roses have no sense of smell; therefore they can smell good or bad, not well or badly.

(d). People are sometimes confused by the fact that while most adverbs end in -ly, some do not. A good example of such an adverb  is hard. As an adjective, hard may mean "violent,"as,in a hard punch. The adverbial form of this adjective, however, is not hardly. The word hardly means "scarcely or barely." The adverb meaning "violently or with great energy" is hard, without the -ly:  "The boxer punched his opponent hard."

Some adverbs even have two forms, one with and one without the -ly.

"Drive Slow!"-is correct.

"Drive Slowly!"-incorrect.

Look at the list of some common adverbs that have two acceptable forms:

bright-The sun shone bright this morning.

brightly-The sun shone brightly this morning.

deep: Drink deep.

deeply: She felt the loss deeply.

Fair: Play fair.

Fairly: We must deal fairly with her.

High: Aim high in life.

Highly: He thinks highly of you.

Loose: This shirt fits too loose.

Loosely: Tie the rope loosely to the post.

Quick: Come quick!

Quickly: He asked me to come quickly.

Slow: Drive slow.

Slowly: He drove slowly off.

Soft: Speak soft, please.

Softly: To speak softly is to speak well.

Tight: Tie the rope tight.

Tightly: He held her tightly by the hand.