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Style: Adverbitis

Whom would you believe, someone who said simply

"I love you"

or someone who said

"I really and sincerely love you very much"?

Think about it. The adverbs "really" and "sincerely" modify "love" -- they are helping "love" along. "Love," then, needs help in this sentence. Perhaps the speaker is sincere, but his propping up the verb with two adverbs and an adverbial phrase ("very much") might make us doubt it.

Adverbs, used effectively, say how, when, in what manner, place, and direction something happens or gets done. They add color and flavor to verbs:

Fearfully she flipped on the light.

They support adjectives:

We were almost drunk.

They give mood to whole sentences:

Gradually I grew suspicious, and began to make enquiries about his alibi.

However, used too often, they suggest that a writer is spinning the wheels of the verb, straining for effect:

The couple in front of us was necking passionately, and we were really annoyed that we couldn't exactly see what was happening in the movie.

One adverb per sentence, in this case "passionately," will do. Check to see if the verbs express strong meaning, and don't inhibit them by belaboring that strength. Avoid "definitely," "truly," "really," "very," unless you are using them to make an action more precise:

Not: I definitely hated that exam. ("hated" makes the point)
But: The exam asked me to speak definitely about the suffragists.

   Passive Voice
   Intransitive Verbs
   Too Many Little Words
   Adverbitis
   Hitchhikers, Babblers, and Jaw-Flappers
   Windy and Pretentious Language
   Balance and Consistency

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