[Magdalen] Like I Was Puzzled.

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

Actually, I think most folks get wrapped around the axle with terminology
and forget the reality.  Adverbs and adjectives are the same thing, one
being used to modify verbs, the other to modify nouns.  There's no
difference.  So why do we need two different types of word for the same
thing?  George Carlin said that he thought it was strange to have three
words, flammable, inflammable and nonflammable ("Seems like two words ought
to cover that. I mean, either something flams, or it doesn't.")

"Slow" is pretty clear.  The slow boat to china is slow because it moves
slow. If we say slow instead of slowly, we lose nothing except a wasted
syllable.  We obviously don't need a word slowly when slow does the job
perfectly well.

What? One wishes to keep all things just the way that they WERE?  Well,
have fun reading Beowulf, Chaucer, and so on, unedited then.  Fair is fair.


James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better
for people coming behind you, and you don’t do it, you're wasting your time
on this Earth.”  -- *Roberto Clemente

On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 at 12:32 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
>
> In a message dated 12/21/2014 12:23:10 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> michaudme at gmail.com writes:
>
> Wasn't  husband originally a verb that got itself  nouned?
> -M>>>
>
> I don't know why it bothers me more to have adjectives routinely
> made to sit in for adverbs than to have verb's "nouned" or
> nouns "verbed", but it does.
>
> I get into this ease with which English reinvents itself
> with my Hispanic partner.  I gather Spanish doesn't have
> these new usages as much as English.  He also gets trapped
> by the word order requirements of English since Romance
> languages don't have such precise word placement in order
> to make sense.
>
>
> David S.
>
>
>
>