As we continue down the dark path of my pet peeves in writing, we have to address the elephant in the room. No, not clichés.
Modifiers. Adverbs and adjectives.
First, a brief grammar lesson
For you word nerds. Adjectives modify nouns. Adverbs modify verbs and other adjectives. Let’s break this one down:
The gray horse ran quickly through the field.
Gray is an adjective that describes the horse. Quickly modifies ran, the verb, so it’s an adverb.
When can an adjective become an adverb? When it modifies an adjective that modifies the noun, it’s called an adverb. Not that you may ever need to know this.
The dark gray horse ran…
Here, the word ‘dark’ modifies ‘gray,’ not horse, so it’s an adverb.
The dark, sweaty horse ran…
Here the words ‘dark’ and ‘sweaty’ each describe the horse, so they’re both adjectives.
How was your life even complete without knowing this?
Why should I care?
I’m not a purist when it comes to modifiers. An occasional modifier can be fine, but…
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