“Adverbs or Not,” by Marianne Boruch
Poetry faculty member Marianne Boruch recently had an essay featured on Harriet, a Poetry Foundation blog. Read an excerpt below:
Adverbs or Not
Since lockdown and now its loosening at the end of May, the governors declaring for good or ill their phases for opening stores and restaurants a sliver then halfsies then full-faced as the moon, I’ve been dreaming madly. Not just that, but the dreams come strangely, rarely sweetly, mostly horribly. Also deeply deeply deeply is how I sleep these nights. Note the big LY trailing behind so many words in these last two sentences, doing its job to connote and drum up meaning via a sideways glance.
To calm myself, I’ve looked into the adverb as institution, not mere linguistic flourish. This curious part of speech is defined in my Catholic grade school’s Voyages in English as if we were on murky waters, staring up at dim stars, while any adverb worth its verb drives our boat of dreams, and fine-tunes. Whoever the author-guardians explaining away those voyages were, they got emphatic about one thing: adverbs answer questions. Of time –”when, how often?”(again, before, earlier, soon, now). Or “place”(above, away, below, down, overhead).Then “degree” comes into it, “how much or how little” (almost, quite, rather, very).
Most dramatically a world is nuanced by that polite but bullying ly tacked on as an ending syllable. “Adverbs of manner,” my old textbook calls them in its “CLASSIFICATION OF ADVERBS” (easily, fervently, quickly, thoroughly). All happy states of being, more or less. But how about suspiciously, gruesomely, unbelievably, hopelessly? Or broken-heartedly? Who knew a book about the wiles and ways of English published in 1951 (and still hauled out when I hit 8th grade, 11 years later) would be all about dodging the full fate of young learners? And maybe that’s good to do, upbeat as hope because it is hope. After all, the planet does keep spinning—to invoke a popular soap opera of the era, As the World Turns, loved by my mother who liked to watch it over a lunch of canned peaches and cottage cheese…
Read the essay in its entirety here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2020/07/adverbs-or-not
