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The author claim that they're not re-inventing adverbs, but rather want a word that modifies another adverb (someone in the comments suggests an "adadverb"). Bu
by SamBam 6y ago
The author claim that they're not re-inventing adverbs, but rather want a word that modifies another adverb (someone in the comments suggests an "adadverb"). But the example doesn't show this:
> “He quickly ate the mango in a distracted manner,” I wanted to write, “He distractedily quickly ate the mango,” because, among other reasons, I wanted to be more concise.
But in the first sentence, "quickly" and "distracted manner" both modify "ate," and so they are both simply adverbs.
While there could be some merit in trying to suggest a causal relationship between the two adverbs ("Because he was distracted, he ate the mango quickly"), that doesn't seem to be what's being suggested either.
So I can't really see the purpose of this. How does "distracted" modify "quickly" in the example? How is "quickly" itself different, now that it's been modified? I don't think it is, what's different is the way the mango is being eaten, so they are both simply adverbs for the same verb.
In any case, adverbs can already modify adverbs:
"He burped enormously loudly."
- TeMPOraL 6y agoYeah, that sentence should look like this: "He distractedily and quickly ate the mango", and then it's clear both adverbs modify the same verb. Unless the author was trying to pull the equivalent of "he is distractedily quick", in which case I don't know what their original sentence would mean anymore.
- SamBam 6y agoOk, but the adverb is "distractedly." The "ily" in "distractedily" isn't doing anything.
- WorldMaker 6y agoAnd "distractedly quickly" is perfectly cromulent casual English, even if not something you'd likely want in formal writing.
- Sharlin 6y agoThe author definitely seems to want to modify the adverb, but "distractedly quickly" is semantically still nonsense even if you use "ly" instead of the ungrammatical "ily". "Distractingly quickly" would be meaningful though ("I was distracted by how quickly he ate the mango"). I wonder if the author is just trolling here.
- guerrilla 6y agoYeah, the author doesn't seem to recognize some adverbs when he sees them. I also agree that distractedly modifies the verb, not the other verb. What we're looking at is sequences that together modify the verb rather than using prepositions. And why is it necessesary to change the derivational morphology when you could just write sequences or conjunctions of adverbs?