Are You Addicted to Adverbiage?

Adverbiage is the overuse or awkward use of adverbs, words that modify verbs—or to put it in nongrammatical terms, words that tell you how an action is performed. Most, though not all, adverbs end in -ly. For example, in the sentence “They listened carefully,” carefully is the adverb modifying the verb to listen. In the sentence “He used the word properly,” properly is the adverb modifying the verb to use.

There is nothing inherently wrong with adverbs—as you can see from my pointed use of inherently in that statement. (And by the way, inherent is properly pronounced in-HEER-int, not in-HAIR-int or in-HER-int.) Adverbs can perform a useful service in expressing nuances of quality or manner. The “adverbiage” problem occurs when the adverb is part of a cliché, or hackneyed phrase; when it is an awkward creation, such as “procedurally,” “constructionally,” “experientially,” or “opinionatedly”; or when adverbs are overused, as in this sentence: “As the report clearly states, the only thoroughly and completely effective method for increasing sales rapidly is to competitively engineer and efficiently market our products.” That horrendous sentence commits all three errors—hackneyed use, awkward use, and overuse.

Moral: Adverbiage always weakens what you have to say.

In his stylebook Simple and Direct (1985), Jacques Barzun offers these examples of adverbial clichés: to seriously consider, to utterly reject, to thoroughly examine, to be absolutely right, to make perfectly clear, and to sound definitely interested. In each case the adverb is superfluous; nothing is lost by removing it. In fact, each phrase is strengthened as a result. “I will consider it” conveys more promise of serious attention than “I will seriously consider it.” “I reject the allegation” is firmer and more confident than “I utterly reject the allegation.” “To be right” is unimpeachable compared with “to be absolutely right,” which suggests that there are degrees of rightness. And “let me make one thing clear” is a stronger statement than “let me make one thing perfectly clear,” because inserting the adverb perfectly makes you sound either condescending or defensive.

Take a look at the following passage, which I culled from the sales brochure of a company specializing in “instructional technology”—by which they mean, in plain English, “training programs.” See if you can discern why and how the writing is flawed:

[We] understand the critical need for instruction that truly teaches what people need to know. People learn best when the instruction is designed so that it facilitates the learning process and when they thoroughly enjoy the learning activity.

That is terrible writing; unfortunately, it is typical of the thoughtless and careless way many educated and otherwise articulate people use the language. Did you hear the vogue word, catch phrases, and adverbiage? In two sentences containing just thirty-eight words, the writer used the vogue word “facilitates”; the catch phrases “learning process,” “learning activity,” and “critical need”; and two blundering bits of adverbiage: “truly teaches” and “thoroughly enjoy.”

The verb facilitate has been in the language for almost four hundred years; it’s a decent word that comes in handy every so often. The problem is that in trying to pump up their prose, people have overworked facilitate nigh unto death. Why must we always facilitate something when the words help, support, assist, and encourage are there to help, support, assist, and encourage us? Likewise, can’t we just enjoy learning without making it a process, an activity, or an experience? And why is a need always critical? Will someone die if it isn’t satisfied? If you said “I have a critical need to go to the bathroom,” the person you said it to probably would burst out laughing. Yet in a world where a crisis must be a “serious crisis” to merit attention, we fear a need will be ignored unless we say it’s a “critical need.”

Finally, we have the adverbiage problem. The writer of those two miserable sentences tried to sound enthusiastic and convincing by using the phrases “truly teaches” and “thoroughly enjoy” but wound up being verbose and trite. In a colloquial exchange with a coworker about a movie you had seen, it would be natural for you to say you “thoroughly enjoyed” it and found it “truly interesting.” That’s because speech is more informal, more wordy, and less precise than writing, which should be simple and direct—especially if it’s a sales pitch.

Good, tight writing has no superfluous words; the practiced writer learns to cut them out, and the first ones to go are always adverbs. What does thoroughly enjoy say that enjoy can’t convey by itself? Likewise, truly does nothing for the verb to teach—you either teach or you don’t teach. In fact, truly is so often used insincerely that it’s hard to believe it contains any more enthusiasm than it does in the complimentary close of a letter, “yours truly.” Truly, along with the adverbs actually, basically, and really, are filler words that carry little or no weight by themselves; they are common in everyday, informal conversation, but in writing they should be used with caution, or not at all.

The lesson here is don’t overwrite. Avoid overused words and overblown expressions. Delete wherever possible. Strive to be clear and terse. Strong writing does its work unencumbered by hordes of adverbs, or, as in the case of “critical need,” by phrases exaggerated or overused to the point of meaninglessness.