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Why I Am Proudly, Strongly, and Happily in Favor of Adverbs

Writing isn’t math. It has no Pythagorean theorem, but it’s simple to ban adverbs. In many cases, doing so can improve the work in question, as it encourages writers—children, adults, newbies, veterans—to think about structure and diction. The no-adverbs rule only becomes problematic when students don’t learn—just like how there are many words where “e” comes before “i”—that there are times when the rule is meant to be broken.

Even those most famous rulebooks couch their points in qualifiers. Dig past the section headings, and Strunk and White aren’t always against an adverb. It’s in the rush to get it right that those who rely on those rules replace Zinsser’s “most” with “all.” We forget that there are exceptions, that an adverb can go a long way.

Lily Rothman comes to the defense of a much-maligned part of speech. Read more.

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