Hi Yea Forums, sperging out over adverbs - it's ruining my reading experience. Please help me answer this question:
In the following sentence, why does the adverb come before the main verb? >My father was in the tiny galley kitchen, silently cooking.
I was always under the impression that adverbs were placed: After the main verb in a sentence: >He walked quickly and managed to catch the train. After the main verb + object: >He walked up the stairs quietly as not to wake anyone. Before adjectives >I am remarkably bad at thinking of these kinds of examples. Before participles >The dimly lit room produced a certain ambience. Before (???) gerunds Properly chewing is a good way to prevent digestive issues Before nouns >It was a large city in which tourists often got lost.
So why does 'silently' come before 'cooking' in the first sentence I mentioned? Is it because 'cooking' is a present participle and therefore functioning as an adjective? It's from the book 'Swing Time' by Zadie Smith btw.
>My father was silently cooking in the tiny galley kitchen. This would be much better. Also you have to go with how it sounds faggot
Leo Collins
>This would be much better In the context of the scene, not really. And it's just circumventing the problem instead of solving it - in my sentence, why is it placed before? >You have to go with how it sounds You can sometimes 'feel' when it's wrong, but there are still rules.
Brayden Lopez
bump
Thomas Morales
bump
Lincoln Peterson
In most of your examples, before or after are more a matter of taste/flow of the sentence. >silently cooking vs. cooking silently Both fine, same with the stairs example. >properly chewing sounds a bit weird in that sentence. I'd tend towards chewing properly.
Samuel Green
The short answer is that it doesn't matter.
Leo Wood
>In most of your examples Not really >more a matter of taste/flow of the sentence. It really isn't. There are places where they should go. It's a bit obscure but I still want to know. >sounds a bit weird in that sentence. It does, and I'd agree with 'chewing properly' sounding more natural, but 'chewing' is functioning as a noun in that sentence and so grammatically, 'chewing' should go before. Putting a noun before an adverb sounds really weird, like 'the cat fat eats too much food.'
Jack Moore
How is "chewing" functioning as a noun? >not really Not really what? >It really isn't So how come none of your examples is grammatically incorrect? If each one was either correct or incorrect, then it wouldn't be a matter of taste.
Jason Harris
grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive. If cooking silently & silently cooking are both used, then they are both correct
David Johnson
>How is chewing functioning as a noun. Because it's not functioning as a verb ('I was chewing my food') or a participle ('chewing gum') it's just a noun, without an object. Same way as 'jogging is one of my favourite activities'. It's not that someone is doing the act of jogging, or jogging is being used with an object, it's just that the action of jogging is forming its own noun, acting as a subject. >Not really what? 'In most of my examples before or after are more of a matter of taste' - I was disagreeing with this because pretty much all of my examples are not matters of taste, but examples of correct grammar. It just messes me up because they tend to switch around in the novel. I just feel like there's something I'm not getting.
Adam Ward
The adjective can go on the other side of the verb in all cases without changing the tone or meaning. If it isn't coming naturally to you, stop wasting our time and go live in an English speaking country for 6 months you 3rd world nigger
Aaron Baker
I’d say they both describe different scenarios
>silently cooking
The father is in silence himself, perhaps meditating as he cooks, looking for some solace in his activity.
>cooking silently
The father is tip-toeing around the kitchen and slicing the onions at one mm per minute so as not to make a sound.
Adam Reed
>The adjective can go on the other side of the verb in all cases without changing the tone or meaning. No it bloody can't, you absolute imbecile. Firstly it depends specifically on the adverb you're using; secondly it's not about the tone or meaning, but about grammar; and thirdly I'm talking about adverbs specifically, as outlined in the example. Also I'm an English native. Go suck an AIDS dick
Dominic Sanchez
Adverbs are kind of notorious for fitting almost anywhere. I was taught this as a method of identifying them when I was in school.
Zachary Ortiz
Thanks, you're right. It does change the sentence in the way you've outlined. But 'silently cooking' makes cooking sound like an adjective, as if that's as much a descriptor of the father looks or sounds like rather than what he's doing in that moment, and thus requires the adverb to go before. I think? Yeah you can usually just feel when they're wrong and sometimes it's about what kinds of words they're modifying, but sometimes the pattern just seems to randomly switch around.
Jordan Roberts
>My father was in the tiny galley kitchen, cooking silently. Perfectly correct and understandable. >He quickly walked and managed to catch the train. This changes the meaning of it a bit (as in 'he quickly started walking to catch the train,' rather than 'he walked quickly in order to catch the train.'), but does not make it grammatically incorrect or confusing. >He quietly walked up the stairs so as not to wake anyone Perfectly correct and understandable. >I am remarkably bade at thinking of these kinds of example This one makes it clunky and ruins the flow, but with a couple of commas, would not be incorrect. "I am bad, remarkably, at thinking of these kinds of examples." Same with the next example - commas save the flow: >The dimly lit room produced... The room, dimly lit, produced... >properly chewing is a good way to prevent... Chewing properly is a good way...Perfectly coherent and grammatically correct. >It was a large city in which tourists often got lost. It was a large city in which tourists got lost often. Perfectly coherent and grammatically correct.
Kayden Smith
so you seem to know more about it than anyone else but you still ask this stupid question. As one user pointed out, grammar isn't normative and if it's used it's correct
Parker Miller
They go wherever an educated native speaker feels like they should go. This is the rule for every aspect of English.
Justin Watson
one adverb per page AND NO MORE most of your example would be better if recast not to use the adverb in the first place >My father was in the tiny galley kitchen, silently cooking. my father was in the kitchen, a tiny galley. he was cooking in silence. >He walked quickly and managed to catch the train. he caught the train with moments to spare, after putting a bit of pace into his walking etc etc
Lucas Perez
>It's another retard that thinks Strunk and White is an authoritative writing guide I feel bad for you.
Robert Howard
i guess you've never actually had anything published (except maybe some shitty self published nonsense). if your text is strewn with adverbs, they will get edited out. OP claims the sentence is taken from a Zadie Smith book. i haven't read it. maybe her editor allowed it for some stylistic reason, because Zadie is a well known author and can get away with such things. you aren't, therefore you can't.
Gabriel Johnson
>Adverbs are bad because publishers don't like them Try again
Isaiah Garcia
>Before nouns Those are adjectives, not adverbs
Ian Cooper
No, it doesn't innately sound better. It depends precisely upon the image he is trying to convey. The first is factual and the second is one that separates via tone. The emphasis in the second is focused on where the person is above what he was doing.
Lucas Ramirez
Gerunds can still have objects when they act as nouns.
Nathan Williams
The usage of adverbs in writing is perfectly fine and anyone telling you otherwise has no literary sense. Pic is page 1 of Ulysses with all of the adverbs underlined. Reposting because I missed one the first time.
just because joyce can do it, doesn't mean you should. he's james fucking joyce. you're a fucking non
Daniel Gray
It means that it is an established usage in literature. He isn't breaking any rule in usage of adverbs, because there is no such rule. It's like beginning sentences with "and" or "but." It's completely normal.
Jacob Hill
Also regarding this, the first two words, "Stately, plump" were cut off in my screenshot, but it is arguable that "stately" is an adverb there as well, rather than an adjective. You can find discussion about this issue by literary critics if you Google it.
Anthony Lopez
Probably because the writer wanted the silent part to be the first thing for you to know. It's okay to bend the rules for effect.
Caleb Cook
There isn't any rule about putting adverbs before or after Verbs...
Julian Gutierrez
>you have to go with how it sounds faggot This is the heart of Purple Prose-core.
Jace Carter
k user whatever you say, remain unpublished forever
Wyatt Morris
>Publishers are the gold standard as to what quality writing actually is when they publish slop C'mon, user, this isn't even hard.
Jason Martinez
Cooking silently sounds like they're making a batch of silently
Christopher Miller
>OP claims the sentence is taken from a Zadie Smith book. It is - it's from 'Swing Time'. Also thanks to everyone for their responses. What are? I have no idea how to distinguish between gerunds and participles then. I thought gerunds were just participles with no object. This is true. :/ lol
Jace Murphy
A gerund is a verbal noun and a participle is a verbal adjective
Dylan Young
Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. Quirk et al covers that the transition of an -ing form of the verb is gradated from most verbal (he was running) to most nominal (Proper running is...). One of the criterion from what I remember is if it can modified by an adverb or adjective. The gerund in OP has actually not been fully nominalized.
Jack Martin
>One of the criterion from what I remember is if it can modified by an adverb or adjective. The gerund in OP has actually not been fully nominalized. Your example of most nominal is also modified by an adverb
Grayson Nelson
>In the following sentence, why does the adverb come before the main verb? >>My father was in the tiny galley kitchen, silently cooking. How much of an ESL are you? "Cooking" isn't the main verb in that sentence. The main verb is "was". "Cooking" is a present participle used adjectivally which refers to the subject, namely "my father". You said it yourself that adverbs usually go before present participles, so what's the problem with that sentence?
>Before nouns Adverbs are never used before nouns. Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs; they can't modify nouns. That's the adjectives' job.
>Properly chewing Nobody speaks like that. "Chewing properly" seems much more natural.
Asher Walker
Proper is an adjective, so no, it's not.
Adrian Wright
>The main verb is 'was'. No, that's the auxilliary verb.
Caleb Rivera
No, in that sentence it is the main verb; was is an auxiliary verb in: >This thread was killing me with all the ESL students.
Zachary Evans
Is your reading comprehension that bad? I'm honestly worried for you, user. You may be unironically retarded.
