Pedants' Paradise

[french frank]

The OED is rapidly going the way of Radio 3 [&c ...].

That's an incorrect interpretation of what the dictionary is for:

"The Oxford English Dictionary is not an arbiter of proper usage, despite its widespread reputation to the contrary. The Dictionary is intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, its content should be viewed as an objective reflection of English language usage, not a subjective collection of usage ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’. However, it does include information on which usages are, or have been, popularly regarded as ‘incorrect’."

And this what it in fact says about 'literally':

"c. colloq. Used to indicate that some (freq. conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense: ‘virtually, as good as’; (also) ‘completely, utterly, absolutely’. Now one of the most common uses, although often considered irregular in standard English since it reverses the original sense of literally (‘not figuratively or metaphorically’)." That isn't 'justifying' the usage: it's pointing out that that's how some people use it.

[Pabmusic]

...I was in the aforementioned pharmacy this afternoon and mentioned the grammatical howler. ...

Not much of a howler really, because there are many 'flat' adverbs that have functioned as adverbs for centuries - certainly in informal speech. "Come quick!", "Take it easy", "I worked hard on it", "You'd better be right" and so on. 'Adjective' and 'adverb' are surely just names for syntactic roles, rather than classifications that attach to individual words in isolation.

Here's quite a good article on flat adverbs: https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/w...rbs-fall-flat/

Well, I sure am pleased to get that off my chest.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think there's a difference between informal speech and considered phrasing for an advertisement.

[Pabmusic]

I think there's a difference between informal speech and considered phrasing for an advertisement.

Not really, especially as advertisements are often couched in informal terms (and the one in question certainly was).

But flat adverbs have been part on English, formal and informal, for centuries. Take Robinson Crusoe: "the weather being excessive hot" or "the sea went dreadful high". Or the Auhtorised Version of the Bible (in which there are truly hundreds of examples): "…and they were sore afraid" (Luke 2:9). Or Shakespeare (who loved flat adverbs, in these examples the same one): "The moon shines bright. In such a night as this, when the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees" (Merchant of Venice, Act V, Sc 1) or "Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!" (Romeo & Juliet, Act 1, Sc 5).

'Wide' used as an adverb ("open wide, please") appears in Beowulf in 725. Also widre (comparative nominative singular neutral as an adverb) - 'more remotely'. ('Widely' doesn't show up till the 17th Century according to the OED.) 'Wide open' appears in the 1300s.

So, the grammar that separates adverbs from adjectives so rigidly is a late-comer.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Not really, especially as advertisements are often couched in informal terms (and the one in question certainly was).

OK so it's deliberate bad grammar to dumb down like "less emissions" rather than "lowet emissions".

[Pabmusic]

OK so it's deliberate bad grammar to dumb down like "less emissions" rather than "lowet emissions".

I don't know (I didn't write it, after all) but I would say that Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Defoe, Austen, Dickens, Wilde and the authors of Beowulf and the Authorised Version of the Bible probably wouldn't have regarded it as ungrammatical. Neither do I (for what it's worth).

The history is simple. Old English adverbs were formed by adding -e or -lice to adjectives. Over time, the forms ending in -e lost it whilst -lice became -ly. They all remained adverbs, though, modifying verbs. It's the ones that do not have -ly that are called 'flat' adverbs. The non-ly forms used to be much more numerous (see the 1611 Bible), so what happened?

It was the Latin Grammar Police of the 17th and 18th Centuries, followed by loads of Victorian grammar books. Latin could do nothing like English could - use the same word both as an adjective and an adverb - therefore English had to stop doing it. The suffix -ly was deliberately added to many words (see my comment about 'wide' in 1414) and the number of flat adverbs was thus considerably reduced. But it's not real grammar - it's pseudo-grammar to try to make English conform to Latin (a language it did not come from in the first place and with which it shares no real grammar). During the same period we gained such useful 'rules' as "never split an infinitve" (the infinitive in Latin is just one word so can't be split; it's two words in English and can) and "never end a sentence with a preposition" (because it's meaningless in Latin; not so in English).

Yet we all use flat adverbs still. "We were late and missed the train"; "When Bob was in prison he promised to go straight, but look what's happened now"; "You'll have to work very hard if you want to pass"; "He didn't really play fair with the others"; "He was clearly having to think fast"; "Instead of taking things easy, she started a new project".

The Boots example might have arisen for the 'dumbing-down' reason you suggest - but if so the writer accidentally hit upon a correct grammatical use of 'easy' as an adverb. As in the last sentence of the previous paragraph.

[jean]

I note that the list in your link mentions cheap but not dear, which is one that suffers most from anxious hypercorrection - it cost him dearly instead of it cost him dear.

Sometimes even the anxious can't do that of course, as lately, hardly, surely, nearly have meanings distinct from those of the flat forms.

[Ockeghem's Razor]

Do the solecisms of presenters go here? Listening to the repeat of the Berio/Shostakovich Prom today I heard T Service state that there was a 'gigantic orchestra arraigned in front of me.' About to play selections from 'Trial By Jury' no doubt.

[french frank]

Do the solecisms of presenters go here? Listening to the repeat of the Berio/Shostakovich Prom today I heard T Service state that there was a 'gigantic orchestra arraigned in front of me.' About to play selections from 'Trial By Jury' no doubt.

Maybe they played it very badly. Though TS sounds as if he's the presiding judge.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I note that the list in your link mentions cheap but not dear, which is one that suffers most from anxious hypercorrection - it cost him dearly instead of it cost him dear.

Sometimes even the anxious can't do that of course, as lately, hardly, surely, nearly have meanings distinct from those of the flat forms.

When I see school age horse riders riding along the road at 10.00 a.m. in mid-May (Monday-Friday) with a sign that says "PLEASE PASS SLOW", I am tempted to stop and ask them why they are skiving off school, when it is so evident that they need to be there.

[french frank]

When I see school age horse riders riding along the road at 10.00 a.m. in mid-May (Monday-Friday) with a sign that says "PLEASE PASS SLOW", I am tempted to stop and ask them why they are skiving off school, when it is so evident that they need to be there.

But there are common English idioms. We say Go slow as well as Go slowly (your example seems odd but I've never seen it - we don't see many horses in the city).

The great characteristic of English is how, idiomatically (not 'incorrectly' or 'informally), words can be used in a variety of grammatical ways. This flexibility is a particular eccentricity of English, not necessarily sloppiness. You might just as well say that dough, cough, tough, bough SHOULD all rhyme if pronounced correctly.

[jean]

When I see school age horse riders riding along the road at 10.00 a.m. in mid-May (Monday-Friday) with a sign that says "PLEASE PASS SLOW", I am tempted to stop and ask them why they are skiving off school, when it is so evident that they need to be there.

If they were there, they might have to study some Shakespeare, which would only confirm them in their beliefs:

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man's revenue...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But there are common English idioms. We say Go slow as well as Go slowly (your example seems odd but I've never seen it - we don't see many horses in the city).

"Go slow" is an idiom when it means a work to rule. But surely not when a truanting learner rider in Driffield wants cars to drive slowly.

[vinteuil]

"And come he slow, or come he fast,
It is but Death who comes at last."

Scott, 'Marmion' [1808]


"Ill news hath wings, and with the wind doth go,
Comfort's a cripple, and comes ever slow."

Drayton, 'The Baron's Wars' [1603]

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

"And come he slow, or come he fast,
It is but Death who comes at last."

Scott, 'Marmion' [1808]

Poetic licence ruins the fun of pedantry.