So it's Wednesday again which means it's time for another Wacky Wednesday post. What should we look at today? We have a couple of different options, but I think this week we will take a look at those pesky little adverbs. That's right, adverbs! Andy021278 wrote a piece to explain adverbs in their usual role as describing words for verbs.

Enjoy, and thank you Andy for this informative article!

An adverb is a describing word. They are the words we see scattered about stories which provide us with more detail: prettily, bluntly, usually, quietly, loudly etc.
First off, I’m not going to tell people whether to use them or not. I know some people don’t like them, some people view them as the Devil incarnate, and then there are out, loud, and proud adverb users.

Whether to use them or not is down to the individual in my opinion, but if you are going to use them, then hopefully what follows will help a little.

How do I know if it is spelled “-ly” or “-lly”

The easy answer is that it is always “-ly”.

The more complicated answer is that it depends on the spelling of the adjective you are conjugating into an adverb.

Let’s work through three examples.

Starting off with a nice easy one:

Take the adjective “public”.
Is the correct spelling of the adverb “publicly” or “publiclly”?
To form the adverb you add “ly” to the end of the adjective (“public” + “ly”).
So “publicly” is the correct spelling.

Now for a more difficult one:
Take the adjective “accidental”.
Is the correct spelling of the adverb “accidentaly” or “accidentally”?
To form the adverb you add “ly” to the end of the adjective (“accidental” + “ly”).
So, the correct spelling is “accidentally”.

How for a downright mean and nasty one:

Take the adjective “simple”.
Is the correct spelling of the adverb “simplely” or “simplelly”
I know I said to form the adverb you add “ly” to the end of the adjective. I kinda forgot the annoying “-le” ending adjectives.
You just change the “e” on the end to a “y”.
The correct spelling is “simply”.

As I said at the start, adverbs always end “-ly” and never “-lly”, but at least you now know the reasons why.
There are adverbs that don’t follow the “add ly” rule, but that’s another story for another day.

If, as a writer, you have invented a word or words of your own, then the “-ly” rule already explained is actually very easy to apply, and should be the way you create adverbs from your fictional world.

The made up adjective “exvegert” becomes “exvegertly” (“exvegert” + “ly”).
The made up adjective “herthal” becomes “herthally” (“herthal” + “ly”)
The made up adjective “zertle” becomes “zertly” (the “e” at the end becomes a “y”, to give the “ly” ending).
Of course, since it is your own made up word in your own made up universe, you could create your own adverb rule, such as they could end “ax”. That would give “exvergertax”, “herthalax” and “zertleax”.

The only problem with that is that your readers will not expect your adverbs to have an unfamiliar ending, and so may not recognise them as adverbs and just think are other invented words.

Borrowed words from non-English languages may appear to be more difficult to deal with, but the same “-ly” rule should ideally be applied.
Although you will not end up with the proper adverbial form of a word, as it would appear in the original language, you will, at the very least, have the expected adverbial form that English-speaking readers will expect to see.

As an example, the Welsh word for “perfect” is “perffaith”. If you were to use “perffaith” as a word in an English-speaking fictional world, the adverb you would need to create would be “perffaithly” (“perffaith” + “ly”) in order for it to be recognized as an adverb.

If you were to use the true adverb form of your borrowed word in the original language, then your readers would have a very difficult time, if not face an impossible challenge, in identifying your adverbs.

To follow on from our example, the true adverb form of “perffaith” (i.e. the Welsh word for “perfectly”) is “yn berffaith”. So, would any non-Welsh speakers recognise “yn berffaith” as the adverb form of “perffaith”?