What's an Adverb?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

I'm pretty good at using words, but I'm not very good at knowing what to call them, ...

Just do what I do. Let them know you went to public school. They'll give you a sympathetic "ohhh," and that'll be the end of having to put forth any effort to learn anything on the subject.

Besides, it's more fun not knowing. You can just imagine what each of the little critters look like. "There's a swan-necked adjective pooping on my lawn again!" And ... "My spiked-toothed adverbs only halfheartedly chase it, knowing it will pogo-jump its way over the fence anyhow." And ... "I've always liked the finger-tipped nibblings of short-tailed gerunds while I'm typing – even though it leads to 'typographical' errors." I don't even want to imagine what a preposition or "phrase" of them look like.

[HarryT]

It is worthwhile putting a little effort into learning basic grammatical terminology, to my mind. It's very difficult to talk about language if you don't have the vocabulary to do so, and it makes learning a foreign language an awful lot easier if you understand how your own language is put together.

I've been leading tutorial groups in various ancient languages (Latin, Greek, and Ancient Egyptian) for many years now, and my experience has been that what causes the greatest difficulty in following the courses is a lack of knowledge of grammatical terminology. We get people who don't know what a verb or a noun are, let alone a predicate or a participle. I was fortunate in that I went to school at a time in the UK (the 1970s) when everyone was still taught formal English grammar. Many people today aren't, and it's a real stumbling block for learning other languages.

[BookCat]

rcentros: Where are you from? (Ends sentence with preposition!) In Britain 'public school' means boarding school; that place where you spend oodles of money in order that your child has a 'superior' education. The other type is a state school. I'm not sure to which you are refering.

I can't remember which poster mentioned this, but there is a great deal of difference in the meanings of 'less' and 'fewer'.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BookCat

rcentros: Where are you from? (Ends sentence with preposition!) In Britain 'public school' means boarding school; that place where you spend oodles of money in order that your child has a 'superior' education. The other type is a state school. I'm not sure to which you are refering.

rcentros is American, so he will use the word to mean "state school".

I can't remember which poster mentioned this, but there is a great deal of difference in the meanings of 'less' and 'fewer'.

No, there isn't - that's the point . Grammarians tried to insist that one should use "fewer" for "countable" objects and "less" for "mass" objects (eg "fewer cabbages", but "less water"), but that's an entirely artificial construct that has no basis in actual language usage.

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by BookCat

rcentros: Where are you from? (Ends sentence with preposition!) In Britain 'public school' means boarding school; that place where you spend oodles of money in order that your child has a 'superior' education. The other type is a state school. I'm not sure to which you are refering.

His profile says he's in the US (Texas), in the US a public school what the British would call a state school

I can't remember which poster mentioned this, but there is a great deal of difference in the meanings of 'less' and 'fewer'.

The particular canard I was referring to is the idea that less shouldn’t be used with respect to countable items. That’s never actually been an accurate characterization of English. Robert Baker stated it as a matter of personal preference in one of his style books in the 18th century and it morphed into one of those weird prescriptivist “rules” that had no relationship to how the language was actually used.

In actual English, “less” has been used with countables at least since the time of Alfred the Great—far longer than modern English has existed as a language. And it’s been continuously used even in high literature and other formal contexts with respect to countables (see Language Log for some numbers on how common it is both today and historically). The purported rule is simply wrong.

Webster's Dictionary of English Usage chimes in (with appropriate references to the OED for those east of the pond):

The OED shows that less has been used of countables since the time of King Alfred the Great — he used it that way in one of his own translations from Latin — more than a thousand years ago (in about 888). So essentially less has been used of countables in English for just about as long as there has been a written English language. After about 900 years Robert Baker opined that fewer might be more elegant and proper. Almost every usage writer since Baker has followed Baker's lead, and generations of English teachers have swelled the chorus. The result seems to be a fairly large number of people who now believe less used of countables to be wrong, though its standardness is easily demonstrated.

Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage also discusses:

It should be borne in mind, however, that there is ample historical warrant for the type less roads, less people, etc. Such uses originate from the [Old English] construction of Iæs adv. (quasi-sb.) with a partitive genitive' (OED). In OE, læs worda meant literally 'less of words'. When the genitive plural case vanished at the end of the OE period the type less words took its place, and this type has been employed ever since...

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by sjfan

His profile says he's in the US (Texas), in the US a public school what the British would call a state school

Yes, in the US, a public school is publicly funded (tax/government dollars) and is open to the public (generally, any student in the geographic area the school covers can attend). I've always wonder why the term "public" is applied to schools in Britain that we would call "private" in the US. Maybe one of the Brits on here can explain it?

I do know what nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are but I've long forgotten most of the other English grammar terms I once knew. Most of the grammar education I had was in about 6th or 7th grade. I had one teacher in high school who cared about grammar and tried to teach it, but the English classes in my low-quality public high school were mostly about reading and vocabulary.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

Yes, in the US, a public school is publicly funded (tax/government dollars) and is open to the public (generally, any student in the geographic area the school covers can attend). I've always wonder why the term "public" is applied to schools in Britain that we would call "private" in the US. Maybe one of the Brits on here can explain it?

Public schools are called that because they were founded with the aim of being open to the education of anyone who could pay their fees, as opposed to the only other schools of the time, which were religious schools open only to members of that religious faith. The first school to call itself a "public school" was Eton College, founded in 1440.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Public schools are called that because they were founded with the aim of being open to the education of anyone who could pay their fees, as opposed to the only other schools of the time, which were religious schools open only to members of that religious faith. The first school to call itself a "public school" was Eton College, founded in 1440.

Thanks you for the explanation. That makes sense.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It is worthwhile putting a little effort into learning basic grammatical terminology, to my mind. ...

I agree, but I've never really gotten down to doing it. My feeble attempts at trying to learn other languages have pretty much failed from the start. I have absorbed some "Texan" over the years from living here.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by BookCat

rcentros: Where are you from? (Ends sentence with preposition!) In Britain 'public school' means boarding school; that place where you spend oodles of money in order that your child has a 'superior' education. The other type is a state school. I'm not sure to which you are refering.

I can't remember which poster mentioned this, but there is a great deal of difference in the meanings of 'less' and 'fewer'.

The United States. Here "public school" just means a school financed by public taxes, as opposed to a private or religious school where the tuition is paid by the parents. My Dad managed to keep me out of school until the 4th grade and then, on the day I turned 16, I walked out of high school and never went back. (Sixteen is the age in the United States where school is no longer mandatory). Even when I was going to public school, my dad assigned me "schoolwork" at home. "Look up this subject and write an essay about it."

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

I do know what nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are but I've long forgotten most of the other English grammar terms I once knew. Most of the grammar education I had was in about 6th or 7th grade. I had one teacher in high school who cared about grammar and tried to teach it, but the English classes in my low-quality public high school were mostly about reading and vocabulary.

One of my college teachers was married to a public high school teacher who had a PhD in literature. But she never got to teach literature because her high school students came to class without understanding basic grammar. So she felt it was her duty to teach them grammar instead of literature because they would need it. I would imagine that would have been very frustrating to her.

[mobama]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

@all With my phrase, "Sage didn't have time to feel bad about killing the big flier," isn't "bad" an adverb?

There is some silly English normative grammar rule (for native schoolkids) that says that in "feel bad" the word "bad" is not an adverb. In English you don't use "badly" (a proper adverb derived from the adjective) there, so "bad" looks like adjective. And IIRC another justification of calling it an adjective in this sentence involved the group of verbs to do with subjective impressions like feeling.

In reality (i.e. in descriptive grammar) "bad" modifies the verb here, so it should be possible to call it an adverb, because it functions as an adverb. This is easily seen when comparing the same sentence in other languages. Other languages use an explicit adverb (a la "badly") there.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by mobama

There is some silly English normative grammar rule (for native schoolkids) that says that in "feel bad" the word "bad" is not an adverb. In English you don't use "badly" (a proper adverb derived from the adjective) there, so "bad" looks like adjective. And IIRC another justification of calling it an adjective in this sentence involved the group of verbs to do with subjective impressions like feeling.

In reality (i.e. in descriptive grammar) "bad" modifies the verb here, so it should be possible to call it an adverb, because it functions as an adverb. This is easily seen when comparing the same sentence in other languages. Other languages use an explicit adverb (a la "badly") there.

Thank you. Now my confusion has yet another layer.-) So, it is possible, in some circumstances, with some people, in some places, that it might be an adverb, even though there are rules against it.

I love English.

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by mobama

In reality (i.e. in descriptive grammar) "bad" modifies the verb here

But it isn't. Descriptively, if you were modifying the verb then you'd be saying that you were numb or something similar: “I can't tell if the coin has ridges on the edges because I'm feeling badly—the Novocaine hasn't worn off.”

When people say they “feel bad”, “bad” is a linked state of being, not modifying feel. It’s exactly the same sort of construction as “I feel sick” or “I am sad”: "sad" isn't modifying "am", it’s just the specified state.

Compare:
I feel carefully around the edges of the glass, so as not to cut myself. “carefully” modifies the way in which I feel.
Do you feel reckless or careful today? I feel careful. Careful is my state of being.

http://grammartips.homestead.com/badly.html

[mobama]

Originally Posted by sjfan

But it isn't. Descriptively, if you were modifying the verb then you'd be saying that you were numb or something similar: “I can't tell if the coin has ridges on the edges because I'm feeling badly—the Novocaine hasn't worn off.”

When people say they “feel bad”, “bad” is a linked state of being, not modifying feel. It’s exactly the same sort of construction as “I feel sick” or “I am sad”: "sad" isn't modifying "am", it’s just the specified state.

Compare:
I feel carefully around the edges of the glass, so as not to cut myself. “carefully” modifies the way in which I feel.
Do you feel reckless or careful today? I feel careful. Careful is my state of being.

http://grammartips.homestead.com/badly.html

That's how I have seen it justified before, as if "bad" in "feel bad" were not an adverb. In reality, there are good arguments for that it is.

Briefly, there is form on one side and function on the other. Any given word may be (at least) two things in the same sentence depending whether you are describing its form or its function. Occasionally, forms are spelled the same and then you realize you have to go by function to explain the word properly.

By function, "bad" in "feel bad" is an adverb, even though it looks like the adjective "bad". Knowing how to figure out how words function syntactically, as distinguished from mere spelling, is a good skill to have.