RE: Adverbs, good or evil?

Subject: RE: Adverbs, good or evil?
From: "Ackerson, Allan" <aackerson -at- logicon -dot- com>
To: Robert Parker <rparker -at- welkintech -dot- com>, TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 11:32:44 -0800

Pretty dumb example, Robert. Let's look at it again.

a) Leave the building.

This conveys no urgency.

b) Leave the burning building immediately.

You've set up a straw man by adding an adjective (burning), which make the
adverb pointless. Do you think that if you leave "immediately" off the
sentence that people are going to leave the burning building slowly and at a
leisurely pace?

Sheesh! The extremes to which you adverb proponents will go!

Cheers!
Al

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Parker [mailto:rparker -at- welkintech -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 9:25 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Adverbs, good or evil?


I can't agree that adjectives or adverbs reduce, rather than increase,
precision within instructions, or that they render such instructions less
effective.

Compare the following:

a) Leave the building.
b) Leave the burning building immediately.

Which do YOU think would have better results?

Descriptively,
Robert Parker
rparker -at- welkintech -dot- com
===============================
Welkin Technical Communications
http://www.welkintech.com/
We make technical communications concise, elegant, and effective.



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