adverbs epitome of incomprehensibility "When I'm worried, I use too many adverbs." Rather; quite. Rationally, possibly, expediently, interestingly? Really? Obviously. Tangentially, now not today. Next. 150424 ... unhinged where i grew up english was a second language to most people around me. adverbs are conspicuously absent. i feel stuffy when i use them in everyday conversation.. 150424 ... e_o_i "Still" and "not" and "now" and "then" are adverbs. 150608 ... e_o_i Gah, that wasn't meant to be at all argumentative. I'm sorry. I just find it cool that more words are adverbs than people usually think. And it's not the big "-ly" ones that are most often used. As for "not," I didn't know it counted as an adverb until quite recently. This was bothering me: in verb phrases like "stand up" and "sit down," what are up and down? I ran across people arguing whether they should be considered prepositions (as those words usually are) or an extension of the verb. Why not adverbs? To me, they're acting like adverbs in those expressions. (There's no "stand down" but there's a "sit up." Mere posturing!) 150608 ... kerry in WR-FIC 201 our professor told our class to avoid using adverbs. she had already written it on one of my assignments--counting my adverbs. she said they were lazy. she also said when she was in high school her prom date never made it to pick her up because he had (for some reason) decided to open and eat a can of diced pineapple but didn't fully remove the lid and slit own throat with the jagged edge of it (we sat in silence and absorbed this. i do not know who believed her.) she had an ex, she said, the worst of her exes, who was a professional violinist. she sold his stradivarius for $10 at a yard sale out of spite. i saw her once walking in the square holding hands with the french professor, the dreamy one who was actually french and looked like tim roth. she had gone to vassar and wore expensive boots. i heard a rumor she had cancer. another she was bulimic. i was more interested in her novel. she liked my writing. at the end of the term she invited us, the two of us, for lunch, her treat. we got there first, waited terrified, 20. she arrived in red: red trench, red heels, red dress, red nails. the cafe was all green and blue like sitting underwater, like dining at a lily pad, she ordered us little fools some wine and apps for all and didn't eat a bite. i saw her a couple of years later at the independent movie theater, in the parking lot. she was wearing a black cape and said she was waiting for a date. 210802 ... epitome of incomprehensibility That sounds like an experience! Someone who'd be interesting to know, but kind of chaotic in the role of a teacher. Adverbs, though. I bet she only meant "ly" ones. It's a common narrowing of the concept. I had a creative writing teacher who was similarly suspicious of abstract nouns. He taught poetry. "I'm not against 'soul.' I'm pro-soul. But I want to know what you MEAN by soul." He didn't talk much about his personal life, but someone in my choir had gone to school with him and knew a lot about him, including that he had a sister who died when they were kids. At one point, I'd had three classes with him and I passed on a message from this woman, saying she knew his sister. "Thanks for that," he said, or something like it, but he looked sort of vulnerable, sort of awkward, and I felt like I'd breached some invisible barrier. Not of professionalism, exactly. In his work persona, he tended towards goofiness, so it was more a Seriousness Barrier. If that makes any sense. 210803 ... kerry That does make sense. And "pro-soul"--that's great! What is it about writing teachers?? a bunch of weirdos. i was (almost!) militant about the oxford comma and i'm sure there are people who don't use it just to spite me. 210804 ... raze ::: singing ::: oh, oxford comma how i love thee thou makest everything groovy, groovier, and grooviest (seriously, sometimes when i'm reading a book and the writer doesn't use these, i have to stop myself from pencilling them in myself. i just feel like they make everything better.) 210804 ... raze (i also sometimes have to stop myself from typing "myself" one time too many.) 210804 ... unhinged (i had to take time away from my teaching when my dad got sick and i was open with my families about what was going on. most of my students are older, high school aged, so i sometimes have brought up being sick, depressed, uninspired since he died. i don't euphemize either. i don't say he passed. i say 'died'. and there is definitely some kind of barrier crossed. like talking about something that real is outside of the bounds of the relationship. but when my 17 year old student tells me she has no desire to practice, i have no qualms about sharing the things in my life that have put me in a similar place. cultural and social expectations around the roles we play are powerful though. sad that professionalism in education means we hide our humanity from the mini humans we are moulding.) 210804 what's it to you? who go blather from