I think I see where Leaffan is going with this – informal American English does seem to have a growing trend of using words traditionally from other parts of speech as adverbs. Check out my real nice car, runs good, wicked fast, hella expensive.
The adverb is a weak, subjective, part of speech, and has less impact than a well-chosen noun, verb, or adjective. They’re avoided in most business writing, journalism, and creative writing. And in informal conversation, they come across as a little, well, effete. “My really nice car, runs well, very fast, quite expensive.”
I hate to bring you down Leaffan, but the OED says the practice originated in Scotland or the US and dates back centuries. It’s not a real recent occurence.
1718 J. FOX Wanderer No. 17. 116 An Opportunity of doing a real good Office. 1771 E. GRIFFITH Hist. Lady Barton II. 283 The burning of three real good and substantial houses in this town. 1827 R. H. FROUDE Rem. (1838) I. 448 Last Friday was a real fine day. 1885 G. ALLEN Babylon vi, It looks real nice. 1887 MABEL WETHERAL Two N.-C. Maids xxv. 174, I was real put out to think how [etc.].
And so on.
Don’t lose heart. Merriam-Webster is notoriously permissive. In my observation, people in the U.S. desirous of maintaining a reputation for careful usage, especially careful written usage, do not do something just because M-W says it’s okay. That said, prescriptive grammar is on the run these days and it’s hard to say whether it will survive this generation. Whether that’s good or bad depends on how you feel about prescriptive grammar.
BTW, if you wanna have fun, open the can of worms known as “12 items or less” v. “12 items or fewer.” As a matter of fact, there are dozens of these disputes. Personally, I tend to the prescriptionist side in my own writing, but it’s rare that I undertake to criticize someone who’s “wrong.” Somewhere out there is probably an authority that says the old rule is silly and/or outdated, followed quickly by the observation that languages evolve, etc., etc. My way, I get a reputation as a good writer, without getting one for being pedantic. That’s best of both worlds, I’d say.
Of course, “less” has been used where “fewer” would be prescribed for centuries. It’s not about language “evolving” - it’s about the fact that common usage has never reflected the arbitrary rules created by prescriptivists.
And Joools - uh, what part of speech was “hella” before it was an adverb?
This may be a nitpick, but consider “the very end” (from here: http://dictionary.reference.com), where it is clearly an adjective. The page says you can even have “verier” and “veriest”, but does not give any examples.
Sometimes the Lolly’s outfits in the United States (“Lolly’s Lolly’s Lolly’s Get your adverbs here”) run out of a particular adverb, and we have to use an adjective instead to do its job.
Note also that the words “still” and “freakin’” are adverbs in this sentence, even though they lack the -ly ending. “Still” in this adverbial sense is acceptable in formal contexts; “freakin’” is definitely informal, and would never be acceptable in formal usage. It’s an example of Gaudere’s law, I guess.
It could be that, or even “hell of a lot of”. “Hella” can be used as many different parts of speech (“there were hella people at the party”), but it’s most common as an adverb.
Be fair. I picked that one precisely because it’s a good example of how silly prescriptivism can be.
OTOH, the problem with permissive grammar is that if one takes all the liberties, not just one or two, the writing becomes very casual and looks like that of a bumpkin. That is, it loses credibility. So, in an important sense, it doesn’t matter whether the rules are arbitrary. (And many of them aren’t, but rather go to issues of clarity and precision.) One ignores them at one’s peril, and rarely gets the opportunity to explain to the person drawing an adverse inference that, “hey, I’ve got this source that says it’s okay.”
BTW, one of the things I have long found interesting is how easily prior generations found it to learn and follow the rules of standard written English. Take Dashiell Hammett, for example (Maltese Falcon, etc.). High school graduate, that’s all. Wrote in perfect English and his stuff doesn’t read stilted. So, yeah, it’s a bit of work. But not all that hard. Whether the game is worth the candle is up to each writer to decide.
Getting back to the OP, Leaffan was complaining about an absence of adverbs, but the entire discussion has been about the use of non-adverbs as adverbs. Was the OP just misstated, or does anybody contend that we actually have less adverbs these days?
Am I right in thinking that you’d say “brother’s” in the above sentence is used in the role where you’d expect an adjective to be, and is therefore an adjective?
Would you similarly say that “John’s” is an adverb, since it’s modifying “brother’s”?
WHile the rule you describe works in most cases, it’s not always the case.
For another example, consider, “The color ‘Franklin’s Pink’ is named after Bubba Franklin. These roses are Franklin’s Pink.” The second Franklin clearly modifies an adjective, doesn’t it?
