----- Original Message ----- From: "a.n.smith" <
ansmith@netdoor.com> To: <
rara-avis@icomm.ca> Sent: Friday, July 20, 2001 9:54
PM Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Elmore Leonard in the NYT
>
> > What I want to know is why the hell everybody
seems to have it in for
the
> > poor adverb these days? I *like* adverbs. This
smacks of
part-of-speech
> > discrimination to me.
>
> What a heavy accusation.
Well, it was meant sort of tongue in cheek. I never have
learned to use emoticons or whatever they call those blasted
little things.
I think the problem with adverbs is that
they
> assume a general reaction or state-of-being for
every reader. "He said
> happily or sadly or mordantly or abusively etc etc"
doesn't tell me
anything
> specific about that particular moment in the life of
the character. Just
a
> general generic blanket term. Describing action and
movement specifically
> just feels and sounds better to me.
>
> My op, anyway.
>
> Neil Smith
For the most part, I agree with you about using adverbs in
conjunction with
"said". I've dealt with editors, though, who want to go
through a manuscript and delete every word that ends with
"ly". That seems to me to be going overboard.
We're probably veering toward off-topic. I'll try to control
my Inner Curmudgeon and stay away from any more grammatical
rants.
Best, James
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 20 Jul 2001 EDT