Aspiring science-fiction authors receive one piece of advice above all others: Forsake the adverb, the killer of prose. It’s terribly, awfully, horrendously important. But why? Really, adverbs aren’t ...

Lately … I’ve begun rethinking my adverbial antipathy.For years, I’ve known without a doubt what to do if I found an adverb in my copy: exterminate the sucker ...

If, somewhere out there in Grammarland, adverbs have their own post office, I’m sure my picture is hanging in it, probably above the caption “Public Enemy No. 1” or “Wanted Dead or Alive.” I don’t ...

Adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. ‘Farmer Frank drives carefully.’ ‘Carefully’ is an adverb describing ‘drives’. It tells us how Farmer Frank drives. Most adverbs end ...