01 July 2025

The Passing of the Adverb

 The Passing of the Adverb

 Dear Editor of the London Review of Books,

I understand that literary prose enjoys seven kinds of ambiguity; scientific prose (in which I have schooled myself) enjoys none. Your reviewer writes of Syliva Plath,

" – the last line of her probable last poem,"

I do not think Plath's last poem was more probable than any of the others, but I understand that it was probably her last. The rule (that adjectives are qualified by adverbs) enables the reader to know what is being qualified. I regret the vanishing of the adverb. 

I also regret the passing of the conditional tense in sentences like: "Were X to participate, the Red Socks might win". I recently challenged an American editor, who thought that his "may win" superior on the grounds that victory was quite probable. But for me there must always be some doubt about future events, and the "might win" is always to be preferred, in order to make clear what is being asserted, and when. 

In phrases like "we're convinced", or  "he'd abstain", the replacement of the verb (are?, were?, would?, could?, had?) with an apostrophe removes clarity, albeit transiently. I regret this use of the lazy apostrophe (except in reported speech). 

I accept that language evolves. But I do not think that educated people should imitate the uneducated merely because the latter are more numerous. 

Yours sincerely, Cawstein.

See also:
[1]  https://occidentis.blogspot.com/2010/06/lazy-apostrophe_7926.html
[2]  https://occidentis.blogspot.com/2016/02/slovenly-apostrophes.html 
[3]  https://occidentis.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-evolving-english-language.html


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