Thoughts About Adverbs

Hopefully, actually, basically, amazingly, fundamentally, surprisingly, significantly, essentially—these are all common ways to begin a sentence, and you can throw them out. My favorite story about “actually” is from a friend whose young granddaughter started many sentences with that word.  Her grandmother asked her what “actually” meant, and Nicole thought about it and finally answered, “Actually, I don’t know.”

Adverbs can be redundant. There is no need for a band to blare loudly. Is there any other way to blare?  Do you clench your teeth tightly?  Laugh happily?  Weep sadly?  Are you totally amazed?  Can you be partially amazed?  Isn’t that like being partially pregnant?

When you use an adverb, determine whether it is doing any work. Does it contribute to the meaning of your sentence? If not, cut it out. It’s deadwood.

Adverbs (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Clichés

Clichés were fresh the first few times they were used—but because they were new and interesting they caught on like a house afire and became overused and trite.

 

Cute as a button, cool as a cucumber, shiny as a new penny, hungry as a horse, fat as a pig—those are all old hat, very old hat.

 

The business world is riddled with clichés. Here is a list of ones to avoid; I’m sure you can think of dozens more. Send your candidates to me, and I’ll run them up the flagpole and see if they fly.

 

 

 

Needless to say

 

First and foremost

 

Last but not least

 

Few and far between

 

Get the ball rolling

 

The bottom line

 

At the end of the day

 

Fall on deaf ears

 

Fly in the face of

 

The lion’s share

 

By the same token

 

Win-win

 

Don’t rock the boat

 

Sweep under the rug

 

The powers that be

 

When the dust settles

 

In the nick of time

 

That insults the intelligence

 

World class

 

State of the art

 

Cutting edge

 

Hit it out of the park

 

Back in the day