Adverbs can be your friends WAS: Re: The Return of Tom Swift

[Haggridd]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "annemehr" <annemehr at y...> 
wrote:

> As for adverbs in general, I find them quite useful.  We know
> perfectly well from this list that you can type a sentence in a
> certain context and still have a dozen different interpretations 
made
> by the readers.  I believe it was Barb who suggested that you could
> set the tone by the surrounding sentences and phrases other than
> adverbs; however, her examples struck me as generally much more 
wordy.
>  There is a certain economy in using adverbs, which I find convey a
> lot of information quickly, unless of course you can do it even 
better
> with the verb itself ("Hermione whispered").
> 
> My only complaint was there was absolutely too much snarling in 
OoP--
> 
> --Annemehr growled, doggedly

I think in theory there is a qualitative difference between prose 
and dialogue.  In prose, the prose itself is the main conveyor of 
information, and it behooves the writer to use such modifiers as 
will make his intent and meanin and mind-set clear.  In dialogue, 
the phrases of attribution are just that, mere direction signs, and 
any conveyance of information attitude, intent should have been 
accmplished in the words used by the characters.

Having said that, I think the practice is frowned on because it is 
used by so many inferior authors-- and overused-- to the point where 
it distracts the readr from the words of the converstion, and that 
is the point where I think anybody would agree that the adverbs have 
been misused.  In the hands of a good writer, who does not overuse 
them, they can indeed add flavor to a dialogue, or another level to 
the text (the shared joke that was spoken of).

"My big brother said that," Grawp said haggerdly.