“Philology . . . the love and knowledge of words . . . It is well we should become aware of what we are doing when we speak, of the ancient, fragile, and (well used) immensely potent instruments that words are.” C. S. Lewis,
Studies in Words [
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_in_Words ]
Adverbs as a class have fallen out of favor and are approaching extinction in all but scholarly journals. In a recent critique session, my colleagues Xed four of them from my submission, saying: “They slow down the reader.” “They are unnecessary.” “Too many syllables.” “Show don’t tell.”
That last phrase is a death sentence for any word that attempts to describe action. “Don’t say, ‘The detective looked surreptitiously toward several onlookers.’ Say, ‘The detective looked toward several onlookers.’ The reader should be able to tell how the detective looked from the situation.”
Message received. Lose the extraneous verbiage. We have come to this pass due to the modern emphasis on writing for film and television, an entirely new language of motion and color and forced emotion. Too late to lament, we must adapt, move on and use our adverbs surreptitiously.
God is an avid practitioner of “Show AND tell”
John 1: 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
1 John 1:1-4 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.
