Week 4 - Adjectives, Adverbs, and Split Infinitives

We all remember adjectives and adverbs from elementary school, even if we don't remember elementary school itself. Adjectives modify nouns, and adverbs modify verbs. So here's a common mistake:

I feel badly.

The writer (or speaker) intends to say that he or she (not they -- see Week 3) doesn't feel good, but he (we'll assume that some guy made the mistake for now) used an adverb ("badly") when he should have used an adjective, as in

I feel bad.

It's possible, though unlikely, that he really intended to use "badly," implying that he's not good at feeling, but in that case he should go back and get recertified by his massage school.

We can have some more fun with this one: suppose you're feeling positive instead of negative the next time someone asks how you're doing, so you say

I feel good.

That's fine, and correct, since the adjective "good" describes your state of being, which is a noun and not a verb. Every once in a while, though, you'll run across someone who's more formal and says

I feel well.

Now some people have pointed out that "I feel well" is incorrect usage, but in fact, leaving aside the possibility that he just got back from that tuneup on his massage technique, it's OK, because "well" can be an adjective describing a state of being, i.e. not sick, as well as an adverb. The obvious solution, next time someone asks, is to say

I feel great,

which people will usually take positively, unless they're worried that your Napoleon complex is flaring up again.

Occasionally, armed with all these up-to-date tips on adjectives and adverbs, you'll think you've caught someone in a mistake. For example, I pointed out to my friend Judy the other day that the poet's father in Dylan Thomas's "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" must have been told "Do not go gently into that good night," since "gently" would be an adverb modifying "go," but she produced the actual poem, in which Thomas clearly says "Do not go gentle into that good night." The implication is that his father can go quickly, slowly, quietly, noisily, etc. (all good adverbs), but however he's going, his state of being should be gentle, not harsh, violent, aggressive, etc. (all good, or not so good, adjectives).


Now that we're up on adverbs, let's talk about split infinitives. We all remember what an infinitive is, of course, the "to xxx" form of a verb. There are famous examples of powerful infinitives without interfering adverbs, of course, like Hamlet's

To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream, ay, there's the rub;

but we all tend to use a lot of adverbs to spice up our writing, and the question arises, "Where do I put them?" The answer, as everyone who's up on split infinitives knows, is not between the "to" and the verb. A famous example that everyone knows is from the introduction to the original Star Trek, the exhortation

...to boldly go where no man has gone before.

There's a good reason for not inserting your adverb in the middle of the infinitive: when someone's reading along, he or she (not they -- see Week 3) sees "...to boldly" and still has no idea what you're talking about. If, however, you tell the reader what to do first ("...to go"), then you can spice up your sentence right afterward by qualifying the verb ("...to go boldly").

There are folks who (not "that," since the antecedent, "folks," is people, not things -- see Week 3) are so careful not to split their infinitives that they put the adverb at the very beginning, as in "...boldly to go...." This usage is awfully stiff, and the preferable phraseology is "...to go boldly...."

[Just a little aside here: notice that I used three dots at the beginning of the last "to go boldly," and four dots at the end. That's because the three dots at the beginning and the first three dots at the end are ellipses denoting omissions, but for the latter occurrence, you need an additional period to end the sentence.]

By analogy with the split infinitive, it's usually awkward to put your adverb between the subject and the verb in a sentence. Instead of

We successfully executed our duties,

I'd rather see

We executed our duties successfully,

and instead of

The group strongly believes that...

it's better to say

The group believes strongly that...,

or in the context of the blog,

Alan believes strongly that he's covered enough ground for Week 4.