You may think it's rather rich to accuse a woman who hasn't a qualm about publishing an 870-page children's book of being lazy, but...
The release of the title of the seventh and final installment to the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, must have been depressing to many people. First, there are the fanatics who are desolate to see their beloved series coming to an end, a few of whom have begun lighting candles for our favorite boy wizard. The word "deathly" doesn't bode well for Harry's longevity.…
Article comments
76 - Scott K
j.k. Too
You are an idiot. There are many posts already on here that detail why Deathly is not an adverb. Read them. If you don't believe them, find a college professor who specializes in linguistics and ask him/her. Deathly is an adjective in this title. There's no maybe about it. The author is wrong calling Deathly an adverb. You're just another idiot who looks up the words in a dictionary and pays no attention to the context in which they are used.
77 - nick
this is article is a piece of shit!!!
78 - nick
oops! there i used one verb extra (really by mistake!)
79 - duane
What about the three exclamation marks???
And let us not forget to mention your continued failure to properly capitalize!!!
Carry on.
80 - Janis
Perhaps we should just all agree that MJ has no real understanding of grammar. Her critique of the title is based on an erroneous belief that her abridged dictionary is an accurate source for identifying parts of speech.
It is true that new writers often use too many adverbs, but that does not mean that all adverbs are evil. In fact, a skillful writer employs adverbs to bring richness to the text.
MJ wrote "There are a plethora of other ways to describe speech than to saddle it with adverbs." Of course, since "plethora" is a non-count noun used with the indefinite article "a", it requires a singular verb. By the way, she's forgotten her comparative adjective "better" to match her use of the word "than." Her sentence should have read "There is a plethora of other ways to better describe speech than to saddle it with adverbs."
There are other errors in MJ's rather sanctimonious text, but I don't want to bore anyone.
MJ mentioned Stephen King's "On Writing," yet she neglected to mention that he named Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as number five on his list of his ten favorite books of 2005. Surely, if her use of adverbs were excessive, he would not have named her as one of his favorite authors.
By the way, Scott K asked for a college professor who specializes in linguistics. Will I do?
81 - duane
Nice analysis, Janis. As long as we're on the topic of "plethora," my contention is that the word should never be used. It is an ugly word. There is a plethora of synonyms for the word. I find that it is most often used as a demonstration of the budding writer's command of the language, in the same way that, for example, the word "utilize" is thrown around -- it sounds like a fancy word.
My current pet word peeve appears in the book The Dragon Rider, an English translation from the German original by Cornelia Funke, which I'm reading to my son. Funke has thrown in the word "clambered" at least ten times so far (when somebody climbs aboard the dragon), and it's looking more and more conspicuous every time I come across it. Maybe it's the tranlator's fault.
Final thought for future posters: enough dogpiling on poor MJ. Give it a rest. We get it.
82 - Becca
Good Lord people, get off it. Firstly JK Rowling's stories about Harry Potter were told to her son as bedtime stories, then made into books. Hello??? HER SON that would make them CHILDRENS stories wouldn't it? Secondly, I don't give a witches backside if she uses adjectives or adverbs too often. The woman has done something amazing that will be remembered for many many years to come. But my question is this...According to MJ Ryan..one would be lead to believe that the world should go back to writing styles as in the days of Shakespeare, who was without a doubt one of the greatest authors of all time. But was also very confusing. Methinks HE could have used an adjective or adverb once in a while and not confused the Hell out of generations to come. I mean we take college courses in English just to TRY to translate and understand Mr. Shakespeare, but there is no need to TRY to understand JK Rowling, it just comes naturally.
83 - Becca
Good Lord people, get off it. Firstly JK Rowling's stories about Harry Potter were told to her son as bedtime stories, then made into books. Hello??? HER SON that would make them CHILDRENS stories wouldn't it? Secondly, I don't give a witches backside if she uses adjectives or adverbs too often. The woman has done something amazing that will be remembered for many many years to come. But my question is this...According to MJ Ryan..one would be lead to believe that the world should go back to writing styles as in the days of Shakespeare, who was without a doubt one of the greatest authors of all time. But was also very confusing. Methinks HE could have used an adjective or adverb once in a while and not confused the Hell out of generations to come. I mean we take college courses in English just to TRY to translate and understand Mr. Shakespeare, but there is no need to TRY to understand JK Rowling, it just comes naturally.
84 - lisa
The word "deathly" CANNOT be used as an adverb nor is it being use as one in the title. It is an adjective and nothing more. Maybe u should've looked in your dictionary before writing a whole article on something u apparently didn't know.
85 - Gillyweed
"Harry Potter and the Hallows of Death. Look at that. No adverb and the meaning is the same."
You have no clue what the meaning of Deathly Hallows is. No one, except JKR, does.
I like her writing just the way it is.
86 - Christine
This is really quite funny!
87 - brandon -- holder of the adverbs
just a reminder...
deathly is not an adverb
thanks, move along.
88 - brandon -- holder of the adverbs
PS. if 'death' COULD be made an 'adverb', it would have been deathILY.
It would help if you didn't rely on -ly as being your sole indicator for a word being an adverb or not.
89 - india
1. deathly is defintly an adjective not an adverb.
2. i love the way she writes and its not up to you on how many adjectives or adverbs she uses.
90 - 2xKnight
Ouch and Ouch.
Article and comments are both pretty darn painful to read. What can I say? I can't look away from this train wreck.
The author has been called both he and she. Doesn't matter because either way MJ has got some huge stainless steel balls to post this. For that s/he should be commended. I don't think I've ever seen better, or more misguided, "Rule Lawyering". Evar. No that's not misspelled, the a is intentional. All other mistakes are genuine.
Comments... Wow.
I don't think you'd see a more vicious pack of animals if you tossed a baby into a pit of starving dingoes.
In summery, keep it up it's freakin' hilarious.
91 - Ferdushi
to "2xKnight" you made me laugh so much!
92 - india
I cant beleive peolpe can be stupid enough not to know the're grammar but then to write and entire article on it. I wonder what the author of that article said when he looked at these comments.
93 - martin
Im sorry do u know anything about english grammar? hallows in this case is a NOUN nad deathly is an ADJECTIVE. ADVERBS cant modify NOUNS, they modify VERBS and hallows cant be one bacause every verb needs a subject. I dont particulary like the books so i don't knwo about the excessive use of adverbs.
94 - mark.gyc
Please consult a dictionary nearest to you. "Deathly" is an adjective. It's quite ironic that this article was talking about the "dire need of a strong editing hand." Please be careful about the facts you are writing about. Grammatical errors are forgivable. Wrong information and weak research are quite fatal.
95 - india
OMG! Deathly is an adverb! Hallows is a verb, it means to make holy or sacred, so deathly is describing the verb hallow. Which makes deathly an adverb. OMG! I feel sooooooooooooooo stupid.
96 - JV
”Everything I’ve ever read or been taught is that to use adverbs in writing is lazy” " what, you’ve only read it and had it taught to you, you don’t have an opinion of your own? Since you wrote a whole article on the subject, I’m sure you do. Don’t be afraid to rely on it.
97 - Steve
Many messages say that "deathly" can be used as an adjective or an adverb. Really?
Can someone give an example in which it is used as an adverb?
Can someone actually do something deathly? "He walked into the room very deathly"? I can't think of a context in which it makes any sense to use "deathly" as an adverb. Can you?
98 - VM
Don't ask me how I got here (or why I'm so horribly late), but that last question had me stumped and in trying to figure it out, I learned something...
I checked the dictionary definitions for both "deathly" and "adverb." It says "deathly" can be both an adjective or an adverb. It also says adverbs can be modifiers of adjectives -- that's the catch! (I sure didn't know this, but it's been a LONG time since I've been in school.)
Example: "He was deathly ill."
I'm no grammar expert, but I think "deathly" would be the adverb that modifies the adjective "ill" which modifies the noun/pronoun "he."
This web page also helped.
But as many have already said, no matter how you slice it, "deathly" is most definitely an adjective in the book title. :o)