Pedants' Paradise

[kernelbogey]

Adverb/adjective abuse:

Don't drive tired (Hampshire Police* signs)
Food delivered easy (Ad for Uber Food)
Find your happy (Rightmove ad campaign)

I take the first to be a combination of ignorance and the character limitations of the electronic sign it appears on.

The second and third are from copywriters bending the rules for effect. Obviously this use of ad media will be a continuing language developer.

And all three are comprehensible!

Nonetheless

[Edit: * or possibly Highways Agency, Constable]

[jean]

Nothing wrong with the first of those, surely?

It's about the condition you're in when you drive (or don't), not about your way of doing it!

[Bryn]

Nothing wrong with the first of those, surely?

It's about the condition you're in when you drive (or don't), not about your way of doing it!

Surely it should be "Don't drive untyred" or "Don't drive when [or if] tired".

[french frank]

Just realised, after reading Jean's, that I hadn't posted this and been sidetracked by several other things

Adverb/adjective abuse:

Don't drive tired (Hampshire Police* signs)

Is 'tired' ungrammatical? It is an adjective which could be read as an adjective in the sense of 'Don't drive [when you are] tired.'

Food delivered easy (Ad for Uber Food)
Find your happy (Rightmove ad campaign)

I don't think the meaning of the first is fully comprehensible. Easy for Uber? Easy to get delivered for the customer? The second is … presumptuously silly.

[kernelbogey]

Is 'tired' ungrammatical?

I think so, even though the meaning is clear.

I don't think the meaning of the first is fully comprehensible. Easy for Uber? Easy to get delivered for the customer? The second is … presumptuously silly.

'Presumptuously' -

[jean]

I think so...

You could say it's elliptical, but in what way is it ungrammatical?

[kernelbogey]

Nothing wrong with the first of those, surely?

It's about the condition you're in when you drive (or don't), not about your way of doing it!

Yes that's the meaning, and it is unambiguous. But it makes me think that we now adjust our comprehension by reference to the medium. So this is - despite being on a c 4' x 6' electronic sign - a form of text speak.

(I think I'll go have a little lie-down now.

[kernelbogey]

You could say it's elliptical, but in what way is it ungrammatical?

Well (delaying my lie-down) you wouldn't say or write 'a tired drive', or 'I drive erratic'. Surely tired can only be an adjective, no?

My bed calls....

[jean]

Well (delaying my lie-down) you wouldn't say or write...I drive erratic'.

No, but that's largely because 'erratic' is an adjective usually applied to people's behaviour rather than to the people themselves. So if you wanted to describe your way of driving rather than the condition you were in when you did it, an adverb would indeed be what you'd need.

But you might well say (or write) 'I drove home drunk last night'. Though I hope you would not have occasion to!

[french frank]

Surely tired can only be an adjective, no?

Yes, but my argument (and I think jean's) is that it's being used as an adjective, not an adverb. It's not qualifying driving (verb), but the driver (adjective), who is being addressed by the imperative.

I go weary and dispirited to the scaffold. I go, weary and dispirited, to the scaffold.

[gradus]

Don't get too hung-up.

[french frank]

Don't get too hung-up.

Always highly strung, me.

[Padraig]

Always highly strung, me.

Could 'strung' be a past participle used as an adjective - a verbal adjective?
Similarly, 'tired'?

[french frank]

Could 'strung' be a past participle used as an adjective - a verbal adjective?
Similarly, 'tired'?

And if highly, why not bigly?

[Serial_Apologist]

And if highly, why not bigly?

largely, surely?