From JEOPARDY! Show #6302 – Tuesday, January 31, 2012 ADVERBS:
It’s the way the crew of the Enterprise “go where no man has gone before”
Though it appears to mean “angrily”, this adverb can mean “extremely”, as when it precedes “in love”
Yea, in truth, really, this archaic 6-letter word doth mean indeed
Othello said, “Then must you speak of one that loved not” this “but too well”
Completes the Tom swifty “Which way is the cemetery?” Tom asked in this serious manner
As always, correct responses at the end of this post.
Some months ago Shooting Parrots was talking about his daughter, who is learning about Teaching English as a Foreign Language, when he wrote: “Until she mentioned it, it never occurred to me that there is a natural order of adjectives.” And I didn’t either. So I ran to my wife, who is a teacher of English as a Second Language. “Did you know about this?” “Of course, I do.”
So why didn’t I? SP explains that native speakers of English “will use the rules without realising they’re doing so while [non-native speakers] will be much more aware of the rules.”
And what ARE the order rules? From HERE:
Opinion – An opinion adjective explains what you think about something (other people may not agree with you).
For example: silly, beautiful, horrible, difficult
Size – A size adjective, of course, tells you how big or small something is.
For example: large, tiny, enormous, little
Age – An age adjective tells you how young or old something or someone is.
For example: ancient, new, young, old
Shape – A shape adjective describes the shape of something.
For example: square, round, flat, rectangular
Colour – A colour adjective, of course, describes the colour of something.
For example: blue, pink, reddish, grey
Origin – An origin adjective describes where something comes from.
For example: French, lunar, American, eastern, Greek
Material – A material adjective describes what something is made from.
For example: wooden, metal, cotton, paper
Purpose – A purpose adjective describes what something is used for. These adjectives often end with “-ing”.
For example: sleeping (as in “sleeping bag”), roasting (as in “roasting tin”)
But the Wikipedia begs to differ, somewhat:
quantity or number
quality or opinion
size
age
shape
color
proper adjective (often nationality, other places of origin, or material)
purpose or qualifier
Surely, quantity must come first, as in Five Easy Pieces.
There are also rules for forming comparative and superlative adjectives. One-syllable adjectives generally add -er or -est. “For adjectives with three syllables or more, you form the comparative with more and the superlative with most.” The adjectives with two syllables are…complicated.
Adverbs are words that modify a verb, an adjective or another adverb. There is a lot to say about adverbs, but my favorite is this: “One of the hallmarks of adverbs is their ability to move around in a sentence. Adverbs of manner are particularly flexible in this regard.” Here is a list of adverbs; note that they DON’T all end in -ly.
JEOPARDY! responses (respectively): boldly, madly, verily, wisely, gravely
