# Should writers avoid adverbs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 27, 2006, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387 "2006-09-27T17:31:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/21 "2006-09-28T01:17:58Z")
[QUOTE=Labdad] Check out E. B. White’s opinion in Section V. of _The Elements of Style_: **V. An Approach to Style (With a List of Reminders)** “8. Avoid the use of qualifiers. Rather, very, little, pretty—these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words.” [/QUOTE] Kinda harsh, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/22 "2006-09-28T01:26:44Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] Kinda harsh, isn’t it? [/QUOTE] Oh, I don’t know. “Kinda” sucks the blood right out of “harsh,” don’t you think? ---
**Author:** ![Achren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@Achren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achren)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/23 "2006-09-28T01:27:38Z")
I wanna play! “Smirking, he drew his scimitar.” On another note, L.M. Montgomery has some well placed rants about the use of italics. I never really understood until I read a short story by a young author. The _words_ she emphasized were never the _ones_ I would have and it was awkward. She italicized many words…I still can’t quite believe how annoying it is to read. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/24 "2006-09-28T01:29:24Z")
[QUOTE=Labdad] Oh, I don’t know. “Kinda” sucks the blood right out of “harsh,” don’t you think? [/QUOTE] That’s a tad true. Rather insightful of you. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/25 "2006-09-28T01:40:38Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] That’s a tad true. Rather insightful of you. [/QUOTE] Mighty nice of you to say so! 🙂 (forgot the smiley in my previous post :smack: ) ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/26 "2006-09-28T02:26:13Z")
Smiley? What smiley? It’s somewhat missing. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/27 "2006-09-28T03:13:37Z")
No absolute ban on adverbs (or anything else in writing) is going to make sense, of course. Twain’s advice quoted above is to the point: If you’re not sure, get rid of it. Adverbs and adjectives are perfectly useful now and then, but they become distracting when overused. In general, if your nouns and verbs frequently need modifiers, you’re using the wrong nouns and verbs. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/28 "2006-09-28T03:30:10Z")
[QUOTE=winterhawk11] Much as I adore the Harry Potter series, somebody should really stand up to J. K. Rowling and make her trim some (most) of her adverbs. Her books are rife with them; it’s particularly annoying when listening to them on audiobooks, because there are passages where every bit of dialog includes its own helpful adverb to tell us how it’s said. When reading, I usually just ignore them. [/QUOTE] I just got drove home from a bookstore and was listening to one of the Harry Potter books on tape, and this thread came to mind, because damn, she _does_ use a lot of adverbs. They really stick out when I started listening for them. But…I didn’t mind them at all. In fact, I rather liked them. ☹ I also did a quick look at something I recently wrote, and found that I used quite a few adverbs myself. :(☹ Guess that makes me a poor listener AND writer. Side question: are adverbs that modify adjectives quite as objectionable as ones that modify verbs? I ask because those are the type that I most often use, based on the writing sample I looked at – phrases such as “he was virtually unknown,” etc. How would you rewrite that? Just strike the “virtually”? ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/29 "2006-09-28T06:06:50Z")
[QUOTE=Achren] I wanna play! “Smirking, he drew his scimitar.” [/QUOTE] “Leer smeared across his beard, he slipped scimitar from sheath.” ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/30 "2006-09-28T06:33:25Z")
“Is that a scimitar in your scabbard, or are you just eyeing me lustfully?” she asked, smiley. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/31 "2006-09-28T07:47:28Z")
A sinister smile grew on his lips as his saber slid forth from its sheath and sliced through the air with the sound of so many snakes. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/32 "2006-09-28T08:26:36Z")
[QUOTE=sturmhauke] A sinister smile grew on his lips as his saber slid forth from its sheath and sliced through the air with the sound of so many snakes. [/QUOTE] I was with you until the ‘sound of so many snakes’ part. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/33 "2006-09-28T08:42:54Z")
He gripped the sword at the part where you’re supposed to put your hand and moved his arm outward, bringing the weapon into view. His lips twitched in an upward motion as he thrust his right arm upward, releasing the weapon. His left arm moved, and his left hand wrapped around the part where you’re supposed to grab the sword. He repeated the motion as he took one step and then another in a forward motion. Or maybe I’d just type He smirked and drew his scimitar from its sheath, tossing it from hand to hand as he advanced. and be done with it. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/34 "2006-09-28T09:12:41Z")
[QUOTE=DeadlyAccurate] He gripped the sword at the part where you’re supposed to put your hand and moved his arm outward, bringing the weapon into view. His lips twitched in an upward motion as he thrust his right arm upward, releasing the weapon. His left arm moved, and his left hand wrapped around the part where you’re supposed to grab the sword. He repeated the motion as he took one step and then another in a forward motion. Or maybe I’d just type He smirked and drew his scimitar from its sheath, tossing it from hand to hand as he advanced… [/QUOTE] Or perhaps: "He smirked and drew his scimitar from its sheath, tossing it _menacingly_ from hand to hand as he advanced…etc. I looves me some adverbs, myself. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/35 "2006-09-28T09:31:59Z")
[QUOTE=DeadlyAccurate] He gripped the sword at the part where you’re supposed to put your hand and moved his arm outward, bringing the weapon into view. His lips twitched in an upward motion as he thrust his right arm upward, releasing the weapon. His left arm moved, and his left hand wrapped around the part where you’re supposed to grab the sword. He repeated the motion as he took one step and then another in a forward motion. and be done with it. [/QUOTE] His cerebellum sent signals along motor nerve pathways that caused muscles in his forearm to contract, which in turn caused his digits to close tightly around the elaborately jeweled hilt of his archaic Middle Eastern cavalry weapon… ah, hell with it. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/36 "2006-09-28T12:02:25Z")
Swords were drawn by men, unplurally. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/37 "2006-09-28T13:41:11Z")
[QUOTE=GargoyleWB] Now, my quality sanitization edit of “The Dunwich Horror” by Lovecraft… [/QUOTE] Before I had a picture of the landscape and understood why it was creepy; after I had no idea even what the passage was about. We’ve gone from silent, furtive locals to a bunch of chatty folk telling the narrator to stop, I guess, since their directions made him hesitate. I take the advice from _On Writing_ with a grain of salt. King rants endlessly about passive voice, but perhaps the most important single sentence is in passive voice: when he sees the van bearing down on him, his thought is something like “I’m going to be hit by a bus.” Besides, Pratchett uses adverbs, so they can’t be all bad. 😛 I am confused by suggestions not to use adjectives, by the way, because they’re what things are. “Show don’t tell,” but how do I do that? Instead of a blue sky, I’ve got to write that the light refracting in the atmosphere directed electromagnetic waves, which had wavelengths measuring 475 nm, to my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/38 "2006-09-28T14:01:09Z")
[QUOTE=DeadlyAccurate] He gripped the sword at the part where you’re supposed to put your hand and moved his arm outward, bringing the weapon into view. His lips twitched in an upward motion as he thrust his right arm upward, releasing the weapon. His left arm moved, and his left hand wrapped around the part where you’re supposed to grab the sword. He repeated the motion as he took one step and then another in a forward motion. [/QUOTE] Been writing software user manuals lately? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![spazurek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@spazurek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spazurek)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/39 "2006-09-28T14:16:00Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] On the other hand, I believe the road to hell is paved with 800-page novels. And I’ve been resolutely, doggedly, and despairingly shouting that from the rooftops for years. [/QUOTE] Keep in mind, however, that the most famous of 800-page-novel writers, Tolstoy, is also one of the most efficient. He wrote 800-page novels because he had 800 pages of things that needed to be said. ---
**Author:** ![ddgryphon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8c91f0/32.png) [@ddgryphon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ddgryphon)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387/40 "2006-09-28T17:00:22Z")
Zinsser is one of the bigger proponents of this style – and I completely agree with him in regards to journalism or other factual writing. ([http://www.cla.wayne.edu/polisci/kdk/general/sources/zinsser.htm](http://www.cla.wayne.edu/polisci/kdk/general/sources/zinsser.htm)). I don’t agree with him in terms of story telling, however. My example follows: I’ve grabbed a random paragraph from my favorite prose author (Ray Bradbury) and intend to Zinsser it. FWIW, I have randomly opened “The Martian Chronicles” and found the opening paragraph to “October 2002: The Shore” [Quote=Bradbury] Mars was a distant shore, and the men spread upon it in waves. Each wave different, and each wave stronger. The first wave carried with it men accustomed to spaces and coldness and being alone, the coyote and cattlemen, with no fat on them, with faces the years had worn the flesh off, with eyes like nailheads, and hands like the material of old gloves, ready to touch anything. Mars could do nothing to them, for they were bred to plains and prairies as open as the Martian fields. They came and made things a little less empty, so that others would find courage to follow. They put panes in hollow windows and lights behind the panes. [/quote] My edit: Men spread like waves over the surface of Mars. Each wave was stronger than the one before it. The first wave of men knew spaces, coldness and being alone. There was no fat on them, because they had been hardened by their lives. They were leathery and ready to touch anything. Mars couldn’t hurt them because they came from plains and prairies as open and empty as the Martian fields. With their arrival, things became less empty and others found courage to follow. They created homes that lit the way for others. Now the problem with my example and my rewrite is a definite lack of adverbs. However, when discussing simplifying prose, it does work. Naturally, Bradbury is a more gifted writer than I am. But I wanted to simplify the prose as someone like Zinsser would advise. As some have stated here, limited use of adverbs and adjectives are the way to go. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-writers-avoid-adverbs/374387.md?page=3)