Talk about Language Mavens
Love, adverbially
Daniel Handler, better known to kids everywhere as Lemony Snicket, apparently doesn't agree with adverb-haters Elmore Leonard and Stephen King ("The road to hell is paved with adverbs," King once wrote). Mark Mr. Handler down as an authorial adverbophile. In fact, he's gone so far as to write a work of (adult) fiction called, simply, Adverbs: A Novel.
Naming a novel after a part of speech is just asking for trouble, since it inevitably will lead to metalinguistic confusion among reviewers who should know better. Here's a muddled passage from the Booklist review posted on Amazon (hat tip to yendi, aka Adam Lipkin, and his fellow Livejournalers):
The 16 intersecting stories (each headed by an adverb modifying the noun love) display a cadre of couplings: gay, straight, platonic, perverse.
On first read, the reviewer seems to imply that the intersecting stories are titled with adjectives modifying the noun "love": "gay," "straight," "platonic," "perverse." This would be bad news for Handler, since it would mean he should have called his work Adjectives: A Novel. But that's just a use-mention ambiguity, as those adjectives are simply describing the "cadre of couplings" in the book. The Booklist reviewer goes on to give some of the actual story headings, and they are indeed adverbs: "Obviously," "Symbolically," "Soundly," and "Frigidly." Publishers Weekly also mentions "Briefly" and "Truly," and a review of 4 Adverbs (a stage play derived from the book) adds four more: "Arguably," "Particularly," "Naturally," and "Wrongly."
So how could the reviewer think that these adverbs are "modifying the noun 'love'"? As we all learned in grammar classes, adverbs modify adjectives, verbs, or other adverbs, while adjectives modify nouns. But that's not the whole story. First of all, an adverb can modify a phrase, a clause, or even a whole sentence. And secondly, we often encounter adverbs used in an elliptical fashion as in Handler's headings, where it's unclear what exactly is being modified. Consider the Tennessee Williams play (and Joseph Mankiewicz movie) Suddenly, Last Summer. The title alludes to something happening "suddenly, last summer," but the suddenly-occurring event is left slyly unstated. (The tagline for the movie spoiled the allusivity: "Suddenly, last summer, Cathy knew she was being used for something evil!")
Daniel Handler, better known to kids everywhere as Lemony Snicket, apparently doesn't agree with adverb-haters Elmore Leonard and Stephen King ("The road to hell is paved with adverbs," King once wrote). Mark Mr. Handler down as an authorial adverbophile. In fact, he's gone so far as to write a work of (adult) fiction called, simply, Adverbs: A Novel.
Naming a novel after a part of speech is just asking for trouble, since it inevitably will lead to metalinguistic confusion among reviewers who should know better. Here's a muddled passage from the Booklist review posted on Amazon (hat tip to yendi, aka Adam Lipkin, and his fellow Livejournalers):
The 16 intersecting stories (each headed by an adverb modifying the noun love) display a cadre of couplings: gay, straight, platonic, perverse.
On first read, the reviewer seems to imply that the intersecting stories are titled with adjectives modifying the noun "love": "gay," "straight," "platonic," "perverse." This would be bad news for Handler, since it would mean he should have called his work Adjectives: A Novel. But that's just a use-mention ambiguity, as those adjectives are simply describing the "cadre of couplings" in the book. The Booklist reviewer goes on to give some of the actual story headings, and they are indeed adverbs: "Obviously," "Symbolically," "Soundly," and "Frigidly." Publishers Weekly also mentions "Briefly" and "Truly," and a review of 4 Adverbs (a stage play derived from the book) adds four more: "Arguably," "Particularly," "Naturally," and "Wrongly."
So how could the reviewer think that these adverbs are "modifying the noun 'love'"? As we all learned in grammar classes, adverbs modify adjectives, verbs, or other adverbs, while adjectives modify nouns. But that's not the whole story. First of all, an adverb can modify a phrase, a clause, or even a whole sentence. And secondly, we often encounter adverbs used in an elliptical fashion as in Handler's headings, where it's unclear what exactly is being modified. Consider the Tennessee Williams play (and Joseph Mankiewicz movie) Suddenly, Last Summer. The title alludes to something happening "suddenly, last summer," but the suddenly-occurring event is left slyly unstated. (The tagline for the movie spoiled the allusivity: "Suddenly, last summer, Cathy knew she was being used for something evil!")
posted by Lisa at 8:23 AM
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