Killing Adverbs

Some things I learned at school were already out of date. The atlas we were given may have caught up with the 1783 Treaty of Paris (departure of British America) but continued to colour many countries pink to denote an association with the British Empire despite them having long since become independent sovereign nations.

Other things we were taught (anyone else traumatised by trying to master the use of a slide-rule just ahead of the advent of ‘pocket calculators’?) were still current but about to become obsolete:

Q: Your father had the car filled up with five and a half gallons of petrol costing 6s 8d per gallon and paid with two £1 notes. How much change should he receive?

A: 3s 4d.

I was taught one thing, though, which remains as useful now as it was then. Delete as many adverbs as you can.

Before everyone clicks out of this blog let me reassure you that it’s not about grammar and it’s about how to read things rather than how to write them. But we have to start with a bit about writing.

If you are editing something on the excellent principle that perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add but when there is nothing left to take away, deleting adverbs is a good place to start.

‘Outside, it was raining extremely heavily but he ran after her as quickly as he could without putting on a coat.’

Delete the adverbs.

‘Outside It was raining extremely heavily but he ran after her as quickly as he could without putting on a coat.’

The sense is still there but you might think the sentence doesn’t quite have the same feel. So rather than using verbs that we then want to modify, how about trying some different verbs to begin with?

‘It was tipping down but he tore after her without putting on a coat.’

Word-count down by a third and ‘energy’ (I’d say) up.

One other thing. We’ve had to change the sentence to accommodate the loss of heavily and quickly but we haven’t done anything to replace outside. Why not? Because – here’s the central point of this piece – if inserting something meaning the opposite of what’s there would be meaningless, the first word has no place being there.

So it might not have have been raining heavily. It might have been raining lightly – ‘drizzling’ perhaps. And he might not have run after her as quickly he could – he might have run after her slowly – ‘jogged’ perhaps. So in both those cases you can reverse the sense of the original words but still have something that makes sense. ‘Outside’ though?

Inside, it was raining extremely heavily…

(As I am writing this, the BBC is reporting how those attending the Royal Maundy service were played a message ‘which the King had previously recorded’. Good to know they weren’t left listening to a message ‘which the King will be recording next week’.)

So what?

Every day in the news someone is accused of doing a bad thing. Today it’s Mr X. After describing the bad thing of which Mr X has been accused the bulletin will conclude with something from Mr X.

Mr X strongly denies the allegation against him.

Applying our test, how else might Mr X deny the allegation? Mr X has issued a feeble denial of the allegation. Mr X says he isn’t 100% sure but doesn’t think he did the bad thing.

So ‘strongly’ is meaningless and the report might as well just have said Mr X says he didn’t do it. But of, course, Mr X’s statement isn’t intended simply to record that he denies doing it - it’s intended to persuade the rest of us that he didn’t do it.

We know that words alone won’t allow us to decide if Mr X did it or not. But his advisers also know that most of us whose view has not already been settled by confirmation bias (Mr X’s fans and detractors) will commit limited time and interest to assessing the allegation so will be ‘skimming’ the news about him. And in that context Mr X just saying he didn’t do it falls a little short.

So he needs to deny it strongly. Or completely. Or perhaps even vehemently.

The problem is that Mr X can do all those things and go on to tell us that the allegation against him is utterly baseless, false, defamatory and untrue. Channelling Violet Elizabeth Bott, he can deny it and deny it and deny it until he’s sick [© Richmal Crompton] but this will still tell us nothing about whether he did it or not. To decide that we need evidence not adverbs.

Back at school we had a word meaning ‘to disprove with evidence’. Refute.

Ms Y refuted the allegation that she stole the tarts with TV footage showing her receiving Maundy Money from the Queen in Worcester Cathedral at the time the theft in Skipton is alleged to have occurred.

Unfortunately for refute it fell into bad company. Perhaps because of subliminal associations with its original meaning, ‘corporate comms’ people started using it as a ‘stronger sounding’ word for reject; more persuasive of their client’s case whether or not that case was supported by any evidence.

My client completely refutes the allegation.

With what evidence? She can say she didn’t do it – ‘reject’ the allegation - but to ‘refute’ it requires evidence. Or at least it did – until dictionaries wilted under the barrage of misuse and were forced to include ‘refute’ as also meaning ‘reject’.

Breaking News: Confronted with the now overwhelming evidence against him Mr X today admitted that he did the bad thing.

We know what’s coming next. And now we know what to do with it.

Mr X apologises sincerely, very sincerely, profusely, profoundly, from the bottom of his heart, for doing the bad thing.

He says he’s sorry but saying it with more adverbs doesn’t tell you anything about how sorry. Or whether he’s sorry he did the bad thing or just sorry he got caught.

Many years ago the actor Hugh Grant did a bad thing and issued an apology.

Last night I did something completely insane. I have hurt people I love and embarrassed people I work with. For both things I am more sorry than I can ever possibly say.

Delete the adverbs?

Last night I did something completely insane. I have hurt people I love and embarrassed people I work with. For both things I am more sorry than I can ever possibly say.

Not bad.

And then in a move widely viewed as madness at the time but regarded by many today as a PR masterstroke the actor didn’t pull out of the TV interviews he was due to give to promote his forthcoming film but turned up and spoke about the incident in which he had been involved.

You know in life what’s a good thing to do and a bad thing to do. I did a bad thing.

Respect to him. Not an adverb in sight.