LET'S SPEAK ENGLISH:
Broadcast: Wednesday, February 9, 1938 at 21:00 PM

Ninth Talk - Adverbs

OUTLINE

I. What is an adverb?

II. Adverbs generally derived from adjectives

SLOW / SLOWLY

III. Adjectives sometimes used as adverbs

a) 'To sing SWEETLY' and 'to smell SWEET'
b) 'To sing DELIGHTFULLY' and 'to sound DELIGHTFUL'
c) 'A SICKLY look' and 'to feel SICK'
The difference between 'WORK HARD' and 'HARDLY WORK'

IV. Adverbs sometimes.derived from nouns:

SIDE / SIDEWAYS

V. The difference between
a) ABOUT and ALMOST
b) 'FAIRLY big' and 'he plays FAIRLY'

VI. Position of adverbs :
Effect of position on meaning of sentence:

0NLY you like my broadcast
you ONLY like my broadcast
you like ONLY my broadcast
you like my ONLY broadcast
you like my broadcast ONLY.

a) Adverbs generally placed before adjectives and past participles:
'VERY intelligent', not 'intelligent VERY
'WELL behaved', not 'behaved WELL'
b) With transitive verbs, adverbs generally come after object:
'I like you IMMENSELY', not 'I like IMMENSELY you'.
c) NEVER generally precedes the principle verb:
'We shall NEVER meet', not 'meet NEVER'
'I OFTEN laugh": but I laughed TODAY'

d) Adverbs of place come before adverbs of time:
'I am afraid to go THERE TODAY', not 'I am afraid to go TODAY THERE',

TRANSCRIPT: NINTH TALK - ADVERBS

What is an adverb? An adverb's a word that qualifies a verb and modifies its effect - 'I eat QUICKLY' -. Here QUICKLY is the adverb that qualifies the verb 'to eat'. I don't just eat: I eat QUICKLY. So I'm finished long before you are.

Or an adverb can qualify an adjective. I'm a VERY QUICK eater. Or one adverb may qualify another adverb. 'I eat TOO QUICKLY'. Here QUICKLY is one adverb that qualifies the verb to eat; while too is another adverb which qualifies the first one - QUICKLY : 'I eat Too ,QUICKLY'. As a result I sometimes have indigestion. I suppose it comes from too many adverbs.

Now adverbs are usually formed from adjectives by adding the letters L·Y. SLOW is an adjective: the adverb is SLOWLY. Governments are SLOW; they work SLOWLY, In fact, they work so SLOWLY that sometimes you might think they'd stopped working altogether. But they haven't: they're only thinking. In some countries the railway trains also do a lot of thinking. So do the postmen.

Sometimes you can either add the letters L·Y to make an adjective into an adverb: or you can use the adjective just as it is as an adverb. For example, SWEET is an adjective and SWEETLY is an adverb. But you can also use SWEET as an adverb just as it is.

In my early morning bath, I sing SWEETLY - or, at least, I think so.

But the poet says, 'A rose by any other name would smell as SWEET', not 'as SWEETLY'.

It's the same with DELIGHTFUL. If your boss calls you into his office and says he's going to give you a rise in salary his voice sounds DELIGHTFUL. You don't say his voice sounds DELIGHTFULLY. But if he sings, even if he's got a voice like a motor horn, he sings DELIGHTFULLY. Remember! He's your boss.

It's a general rule in English that when you use the verbs of taste, smell and sound, you use the adjective as an adverb. So you say to smell SWEET, not SWEETLY; to sound DELIGHTFUL, not DELIGHTFULLY; you also say to taste BITTER, not BITTERLY; to taste SALT, not SALTY.

The same applies to the verb to FEEL. If your boss tells you you've got the sack, you FEEL SICK - not SICKLY. Your face then has a pale and SICKLY look, although you FEEL SICK. With the verb to FEEL, you don't say SICKLY.

But if you're a member of the Brighter English League, you needn't worry even if you do get the sack. There's plenty of other work to do. You can come along and help Miss Lotte Backfisch.

But if you do, you'll have to work HARD. HARD is another of those adverbs that has two forms --' HARD and HARDLY. To work HARD means to work energetically. HARDLY work means something quite different. if you HARDLY work, you do scarcely any work. So if you HARDLY work it means you don't work HARD. You see how simple English really is?

Sometimes adverbs are derived from nouns, not from adjectives .. SIDEWAYS is an adverb that comes from SIDE, a noun. A brick has six SIDES; the bricklayer puts it in its place SIDEWAYS.

You know the story about the old lady who wanted to get into an omnibus in London. She was so fat that she stuck in the door. The bus conductor said, 'Try SIDEWAYS'. The fat old lady replied, "Lor' bless yer, young man, I ain't got no SIDEWAYS."

That reminds me of that hotel in .Jerusalem which has its entrance in a side street. It used to have a notice in the main street - 'Such and such hotel. Entrance SIDEWAYS'.

Now there are two adverbs that are often confused in English, ABOUT and ALMOST.

ALMOST means a little less than. ABOUT means either a little more or a little less than. I've a son who's ALMOST thirteen years old. That means he's a little less than thirteen years old; But I generally forget my children's ages. As soon as I manage to remember how old they are, they go and change. It's such a nuisance. So I usually say my son's ABOUT thirteen. That means he might be twelve and a half or he inight be thirteen and a half. ABOUT is much safer than ALMOST.

ALMOST implies a negative. It means that something has fallen short. I'm ALMOST forty years old. That means my age is just short of forty. Once I ALMOST became King of England. I applied for the job but they chose George VIth instead. You see? I'm just a failure.

So let's pass on quickly to the adverb FAIRLY. FAIRLY has two meanings. One meaning is RATHER. I believe you are FAIRLY intelligent; not brilliant but, on the other hand, not exactly a fool. You don't mind my saying that, do you?

When. I was a boy at school, l did FAIRLY well: that is, RATHER well but not very well. But it didn't matter that l did only FAIRLY well, provided that, at football, I played. FAIRLY; that is, JUSTLY, In England, you can be a complete idiot and everyone will be charming to you. But if you deliberately trip up somebody at football, you might just as well be dead.

We'll now consider for a moment the proper position of adverbs. They're as bad as wedding-presents: you never know quite where to put them.

Take. the adverb ONLY. If you put it at the beginning of a sentence; the sentence has one meaning: in the middle, another meaning: at the end, a third meaning.

'ONLY you like my broadcast' is quite different from 'you like ONLY my broadcast', and from 'you like my broadcast ONLY'.

'Only you like my broadcast' means that no-one else in the wide, wide world can stand it. You're my solitary friend and supporter. For that, I thank you.

If you ONLY like my broadcast, it means you find it fairly good. You don't adore it, unfortunately. That means you really can't appreciate art at its best. But if you like my ONLY broadcast it means that, Heaven forbid, I shall never give another. I hope you don't mean that.

While if you like my broadcast ONLY, it means you don't like anything else. You don't like my singing, or my clothes, or even the colour of my eyes.

It'll be easier for you to find the proper place for adverbs if you'll remember the following simple rules.

First, the adverb is generally placed before adjectives.

You, dear listener, are obviously intelligent. How do I know that? Because you're listening to what I say. That shows you're intelligent. But if I want to use the adverb VERY, I don't say, 'You're intelligent VERY'. I put the adverb VERY before the adjective 'intelligent' and 'say 'You're VERY intelligent'.

The same applies to past participles. The adverb comes first. BEHAVED is a past participle. WELL is an adverb. You' aren't BEHAVE'D WELL, but WELL BEHAVED. At least, I hope so. Of course, you can say, 'he BEHAVED WELL'. But 'BEHAVED is used here in the past simple tense-not as a past participle. Using the past participle, you are WELL BEHAVED.

Secondly, with a transitive verb, the adverb generally comes after the object. I LIKE is a transitive verb. You are an object - and what an object! IMMENSELY is an adverb. I don't say 'I LIKE IMMENSELY You' with the adverb IMMENSELY before the object you. I put the adverb after the object. I LIKE YOU IMMENSELY. And I mean it.

Thirdly, the adverb NEVER usually comes before the verb, not like other adverbs, after the verb:. Now in the sentence 'I like you IMMENSELY' the adverb IMMENSELY comes after the verb. But in the sentence 'we shall NEVER meet', the adverb NEVER comes before the verb. We shall NEVER meet, not we shall meet NEVER.

I like you IMMENSELY, but we shall NEVER meet. That's a pity, isn't it?

Fourthly, there are the adverbs of definite time - YESTERDAY, TODAY and TOMORROW. These are usually placed at the end of the sentence. TODAY is an adverb of definite time. So I say, 'I laughed TODAY'. not 'I TODAY laughed'. It's the same with YESTERDAY and TOMORROW, I laughed YESTERDAY, not 'I YESTERDAY laughed'. I don't say 'I shall TOMORROW laugh' but 'I shall laugh TOMORROW'. Aren't I a happy person? Just a little ray of sunshine.

Sometimes an adverb of definite time is put at the very beginning of a sentence for emphasis. On the 11th September I say proudly 'TODAY it is my birthday': otherwise TODAY would come at the end of the sentence; 'It's my birthday TODAY'. But you can never say 'It's my TODAY birthday'.

Lastly, if you use an adverb of time and an adverb of place, the adverb of place comes first. If you're an adverb of time and I'm an adverb of place, and we meet at the door, I go in first. Thats just as it should be, isn't it? Talking about adverbs of time, reminds me of a story I heard the other day. A German visitor to London wanted to know the time, so he asked a policeman. He said to the policeman, 'Excuse : vat is ze vatch?' The policeman said, 'Just half past four, Sir'. 'Oh! dear', said the visitor, 'SUCH MUCH?'

Poor chap! How was he to know that one says so MUCH, not SUCH MUCH? Between ourselves, English adverbs are quite impossible. I'm not always sure of them myself. You have to be born with a knowledge of them. You'll never learn them otherwise.

But if you still want to know more ahout adverbs, and about English grammar in general, I can recommend an excellent little book called 'A Concise English Grammar for Foreign Students' by Eckersley. The publishers are Longmans Green of London. It costs two shillings and sixpence - about 150 mils in Palestine. You can order it through any bookshop. 'A Conscise English Grammar for Foreign Students' by ECKERSLEY -- E-C-K-E-R-S-L-E-Y,

Good night.