Friday 27 March 2009

Why Ly Must Die

Edited: some kind and helpful soul pointed out I made a mistake. As we all should know, words ending in LY are adverbs, not adjectives. This kind and caring samaritan was in such a rush to do his good deed (or, without the implied sexism, her) good deed, that this person never logged in and so remains anonymous. Such a shame for I truly would like to have thanked this person. Personally. With a baseball bat, the cheeky little arse.

Seriously, I made a mistake, I typed the wrong word. I do know the difference, I simply was tired. Hzaving 3 kids under 5, being employed full-time, studying a degree through distance learning and trying to finish a novel tends to have that effect.

The internet may be anonymous but that doesn't give you carte blanche to be as rude as you like. So, please, people, don't be tossers. And remember it is supposed to say adjectives in this post.

Just kidding. LOLS and more LOLS, etc. ;)
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Stop panicking. I am not planning to assassinate a Chinese person. (That would be Li, not Ly).

But I am feeling a grammar attack coming on. I hate ly words (adjectives). They spoil stories. They get in the way of writing. They make me want to be sick.

Here are words to avoid at all cost:

vehemently exhaustively frugally fantastically superbly dangerously suddenly nightmareishly

And words to avoid when you can

slowly quickly loudly quietly.

They don't have the gracefulness of other words.

I'll post more on adjectives later.

Coming soon... all you wanted to know about airships.

5 comments:

  1. I would have to disagree with you on suddenly. Though it should really be used sparsely (haha! An adverb!), in some situations it really is the only word you have.

    It's much better than "all of a sudden". Also, in some cases, "without warning".

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  2. I have to diagree. I think suddenly is a very passive word, and by removing, and using no other word in its place, you can often rewrite the sentence to be more exciting.

    Here's a list http://www.libyanspider.com/words_end_with_ly.php
    of over 8000 ly words. Some are okay, like fly or holly, some are weird (like vly?) and some should be forcefully ejected from the English language.

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  3. I hate "suddenly" in particular. It slows down the pace of the sentence, which is exactly the opposite of what a sudden action deserves.

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  4. Yes, and it telegraphs your next move. He walked down a dark path. Suddenly, a man jumped out.

    He walked down a dark path. A man jumped out.

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  5. I only use 'suddenly' for one thing. When a vehicle or a person is hurtling along which then stops, suddenly.

    New paragraph to reinforce the jarring nature of the word.

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