We love our adverbs dearly

Last Tuesday, I was puttering around the kitchen when I heard the CBC interview a young man about his new book, “Beyond the Known: How Exploration Created the Modern World.”

I thought I’d like to read this book, in spite of its cumbersome title. The author, originally from Ottawa, now works as a scientist in Los Angeles. Having wintered in both cities, I admired his choice of residence.

I missed the first part of his interview due to a large, slippery, turkey, determined, even in death, to evade my oven. But I was soon distracted from my bird by the number of adverbs the author used as he spoke to the interviewer. Many of his words ended in the letters -ly.

They say, the road to poor writing is paved with adverbs: “I actually like cats” means the same thing as “I like cats.” The adverb adds little or no new information.

Nor does, “I basically like cats, I definitely like cats, I obviously like cats, etc.”

I grabbed a pen and started listing his adverbs; sometimes he used two in the same sentence. Here is my tally for the part of the interview I heard (or the part I actually heard?): he used the adverb actually eight times, basically four times, obviously twice, absolutely four, definitely once, possibly once, potentially once, ideally once and extremely once. The guy loves adverbs. The CBC Radio tape for Dec. 10 can be checked to verify my numbers.

In fact, I’d love to hear the whole interview again. Writing calls for different skills than speaking, so he may be a good writer, and I actually plan to check out his new book at Coles.

Tom Moore St. John’s