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Hellbent

The loss of ly ... does it matter?

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Preservation is a major theme in human endeavors. We endeavor to save endangered wildlife, endangered historical documents, anything, really, that we think has some kind of value. One thing I've noticed that is disappearing is 'ly'. Grammatically, adjectives that can be used as adverbs get an 'ly', or they used to. I am noticing more and more frequently the 'ly' is dropped. For example, over hunting is bad because it threatens extinction, but more importantly, it threatens the balance of entire ecosystems. Nowadays this sentence reads: over hunting is bad because it threatens extinction, but more important, it threatens entire ecosystems. Why is the 'ly' dropped ... and more importantly, does it matter? I guess I like the 'ly', although I suppose one can communicate just fine without it. :-/

EDIT: this is a terrible example since 'important' is not an adverb here. Well, maybe I am completely mistaken about this whole loss of the 'ly' from adverbs. That'd be good.

http://languageandgrammar.com/2008/03/19/most-important-not-most-importantly/

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Language constantly evolves, and is ever changing. Eventually "you" will be replaced with "u" everywhere, and jk will become the standard abbreviation of "just kidding" that will be accepted in the most formal of writings.

As it turns out, we don't have to like it, but we can certainly hate it.

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Adverbs definitely still have the "ly" everywhere I've seen. You say "I walked happily through the woods", not "I walked happy through the woods". That reads more like you're walking your dog who is named Happy, and you forgot to capitalize.

Though I think you could say "I walked, happy, through the woods." That still sounds a bit awkward to me though.

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Heh, I don't know about those. While on freeways it makes sense to shorten 'through' to 'thru', we still write through. It's hard to imagine a world where 'you' becomes 'u'. I think even in texting 'u' is frowned upon (though jk is not). Do you know of any historical examples of words that when formally written have become shortened today?

esselfortium said:

Adverbs definitely still have the "ly" everywhere I've seen. You say "I walked happily through the woods", not "I walked happy through the woods". That reads more like you're walking your dog who is named Happy, and you forgot to capitalize.

Though I think you could say "I walked, happy, through the woods." That still sounds a bit awkward to me though.

weird, did you edit your post? I just reloaded the page and your example was "eager" not happy. I was gonna ask if there is any difference in meaning (even if only slight) between "I walked, eager, through the woods" and "I walked eagerly through the woods". I have a friend who used to have a dog named Happy. ;)

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I haven't noticed this becoming a general habit. Rednecks and people new to English often do it, but that's always been the case.

I figured apostrophes would die first. My English prof in 2001 had a point when he said nobody knows how they work; they see an 's' and just insert an apostrophe before it randomly. Misuse of apostrophes is so common it even creeps into well-known publications from time to time.

The only thing that really pisses me off is the loss of "literally." Now we literally have no word that exclusively means "literally." Gah!

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Clonehunter said:

Language constantly evolves, and is ever changing. Eventually "you" will be replaced with "u" everywhere, and jk will become the standard abbreviation of "just kidding" that will be accepted in the most formal of writings.

As it turns out, we don't have to like it, but we can certainly hate it.

Or not. A lot of things we think will end up in the dictionary or take over often prove to be fads - as much old "official" slang falls out of use and is removed at reviews as new is accepted into it.

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What happened to literally? I don't get it.

When I learned how apostrophes worked it made sense and I've never forgotten it. The only time I find apostrophes get a little confusing is when you have a single Jones in possession of something and when you have a pair of Joneses in possession of something. Which Jones has the Holy Grail? Is it the Joneses' Holy Grail or is it the Jones's holy grail? Or is it the Jones' Holy Grail?

I think it's both Joneses' Holy Grail. Or maybe it's only Henry Jones' Holy Grail. It's Jones' Grail. Has to be. Or is it Jones's?

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It's everywhere. Steven King told me not to use it because it's passive. Another famous writer told me never use not.

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A better example than the "important" one would probably be "slow" vs. "slowly". ("Go slow" isn't uncommon to hear though "go slowly" is considered more pedantically correct.)

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dio said:

It's everywhere. Steven King told me not to use it because it's passive. Another famous writer told me never use not.

From a creative writing standpoint I guess I can see that. I doubt it is in any danger of being eradicated from all English usage. Not sure I can get behind never using not, though.

ETTiNGRiNDER said:

A better example than the "important" one would probably be "slow" vs. "slowly". ("Go slow" isn't uncommon to hear though "go slowly" is considered more pedantically correct.)

Yes, that is a good one. The example I used wasn't even an adverb. It actually highlights an incorrect tendency to write or say "importantly" when one should say "important".

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Literally is no longer used properly. Nor is ironic and probably never was. Irony is calling an ambulance to save your life and it kills you.

Never using not makes a lot of sense. I'm not a cop. I'm not a lot of things.... Well I can waste time on everything in not or I can tell you what I am. It's a lot easier and lazy to use the word not. It's the second greatest crutch word. There are plenty of antonyms.

My English major friends have the word normal.

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Aliotroph? said:

The only thing that really pisses me off is the loss of "literally." Now we literally have no word that exclusively means "literally." Gah!

Anyone who says literally and doesn't mean literally should be greeted with a firm slap to the face.

dio said:

Literally is no longer used properly. Nor is ironic and probably never was.

When did people forget what irony means? I've seen it used properly far more than I've seen it used improperly. I mean it gets misused sometimes, but that's true for nearly every word in the book. Anyone who says "oh the irony" when nothing ironic happened is just an idiot, I think most people would agree there.

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I'd agree with Doomkid, although I got into a discussion (note, not an argument [where's the crutch?]) with some friends, who are admittedly smarter than me, about the use of irony in the song Ironic by Alanis Morissette. I suppose her examples of irony aren't very good, but I didn't think they failed at being ironic altogether (my friends argued that rain on your wedding day isn't ironic, it's just... rain on your wedding day, or... shitty). And I argued it's kind of expected that wedding days be bright and shiny, and not cloudy and rainy. I always find it hard to come up with good examples of irony, though. Irony is just the outcome being different than what one would expect.

I don't really see the problem with literally, though. 'Figuratively' isn't about to go out of style, so why should literally? But, thinking about it, I suppose it doesn't get a lot of proper use. "I literally died of laughing" or.. "it was literally the worst lecture I've gone to" are improper uses of the word but are the way it's used most. You're right, there aren't many scenarios where you'd need to use literally. But you can tell someone not to take something literally, which I guess you'd consider a lousy example of the word since it requires not! That's it, there literally is no good use for the word! I am shocked and nearly perplexed. I mean, how often are you really ever going to be able to say: "I literally had a heart attack? "Joe was telling me about this one time at band camp and when he got to the punch line I literally had a heart attack!" I just can't find an example where it would be the most economical way to say something, unless an extremely unlikely scenario unfolded, like you literally jumped three feet in the air when a snake lunged at you out of nowhere. But even there you could just say "I jumped three feet in the air when a snake lunged at me out of nowhere!" All literally is doing there is emphasizing that you are not exaggerating, it was actually 36" of temporary flight, and actually would probably work better than literally for such emphasis.

Literally is like a disembodied word, almost like a ghost. It's still gets used, but its understood definition isn't applied to its usage! This is madness. But I'm not sure literally really is all that bad to use. I see it as a clever word. A word that reinvented itself. A word that realized its actual meaning offered far too narrow real world application and so found that it could gain much wider applicability by putting an ironic twist onto its usage. I mean, why is that such a bad thing? It's actually really very clever. So I disagree with Mr. Bierce's objection: 'In 1909, Ambrose Bierce included the term in Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults, offering the following sentence—"His eloquence literally swept the audience from its feet."—as suspect. "It is bad enough to exaggerate," he wrote, "but to affirm the truth of the exaggeration is intolerable."[1] No, Mr. Bierce, it's merely clever.'

Oh, this is good: Correction, March 6, 2013: This piece originally quoted a passage from Little Women—"the land literally flowed with milk and honey,"—as an example of literally used as an intensifier. Further context reveals that Louisa May Alcott was using literally literally. The passage has been removed.[1]

[1]http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the_word_we_love_to_hate.html

This Slate article is actually pretty good, though.

OED seems to have added the 'incorrect' meaning to the definition of literally: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10240917/Uproar-as-OED-includes-erroneous-use-of-literally.html

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haha, good point. :) Further bolstering the defense of the literal use of the word literal is eminent stand up comedian Louis CK. Leave it to Louis CK to actually use the word in a totally novel and appropriate way. (I just love this guy!)

Jump to 6:05

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Hellbent said:

I mean, how often are you really ever going to be able to say: "I literally had a heart attack? "

Been there, done that, didn't enjoy it. ;)

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Hellbent's analysis actually has made me reconsider my stance.. ~10 years ago, when using the colloquial version of literally - the version that means not literally - had caught on big time, I thought it was kind of funny and novel. "I literally shit myself laughing" as an example, we all can infer the person hasn't actually defecated in their pants, but it's a kind of funny and clever deliberate misuse of the word.

I think my problem lies in the fact that it has been overused for humor so often that it's no longer funny, it's been played out to it's max and yet people continue to do so. There's nothing wrong with colloquialisms and I shouldn't imply there is - I guess it's just natural human tendency to get tired of these things when you hear them for the millionth time. (Not literally the millionth, mind you! ;)

Also, Louis CK is too damn funny!

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I love that language is analogous to life... language evolves to suit it's environment. There is no right or wrong when it comes to language. It's not a rigid system like math... instead it's dynamic and ultimately based on utility, clarity and preference.

What does matter is being understood. And so long as we keep our current recorded history, we'll always have "ly" to look back on... in the same way we look back on any number of archaic words terms such as welcomest, doth or thou.

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It might just be the sun on my laptop screen right now but hoo boy did I misread the title. I saw "ly" as "ty", and... yeah.

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ETTiNGRiNDER said:

A better example than the "important" one would probably be "slow" vs. "slowly". ("Go slow" isn't uncommon to hear though "go slowly" is considered more pedantically correct.)

Would you say slow is slow replacing slowly?

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Jimmy said:

It might just be the sun on my laptop screen right now but hoo boy did I misread the title. I saw "ly" as "ty", and... yeah.

Jimmy was ready to come in here and bust some heads

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Csonicgo said:

Lolly, Lolly, Lolly get your adverbs here


So I have been remembering that as ALLIE get your adverbs here for the better part of three decades so my mind was just completely blown.

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There are some cases where you can't drop -ly without completely changing the meaning.

Example: "That's hard work" vs. "that's hardly work".

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