Monday, June 10, 2019
Good old grammarrhoid
From a rather obscure Australian culture website, a classic grammarrhoid.
We must have all noticed the fast-coming oblivion of the adverb ending in “ly.” Here are just a few of the many instances that I have heard recently from people on air: It is something that comes natural / You will feel different / We did everything correct / It has not worked perfect / She sings it so beautiful / Are you going to take this competition serious / They are doing it safe / We’re doing absolutely phenomenal / What do you say to people who say you are acting hypocritical – What I say is can you rephrase the question and not mangle the language.Hypercorrection. Taking a "rule" and blindly applying it to cases where it doesn't work. Feeling different and acting hypocritical are exactly right by the traditional rules, and in this case the traditional rules are good. Feel and act are condition verbs that behave like be. Such verbs require adjectives as predicates, not adverbs. I am different, I feel different, I act different. Feeling differently would only be meaningful if you were discussing an alternate use of the tactile sense, such as a prosthetic hand with electronic pressure detectors. Acting hypocritically would only be meaningful if you were a theatre critic discussing an actor who was using his skills dishonestly. Both are conceivable but contrived. Sidenote: The above grammarrhoid, while claiming to defend traditional rules, breaks traditional rules of punctuation in every sentence, leading to constant ambiguity.
Labels: Language update
¶ 3:56 PM
