Grammar Redux

Adverbs are your friends. Advertisers are not.

Evan Spence | 2005-05-03

I know the esteemed readers of pintday.org don’t need this, but for the benefit of those perpetual transgressors—the advertising slogan writers–we all have to suffer through this refresher.

Now repeat very slowly, so the advertisers will be sure to understand:

Adverbs describe the verb, adjectives describe the noun.

Adverbs are generally easy to spot, since they often end in “ly.” Deceitfully, obdurately, and feebly are all examples of adverbs that can be used to describe how an action (verb) is done. Deceitful, obdurate, and feeble are all examples of adjectives that might describe a noun.

To compare: (Adverbs and adjectives are in bold, and their respective modified verbs and nouns are italicized.)

Adverb Adjective
Paul Martin has lead the country deceitfully. Paul Martin is a deceitful leader.
Ontario votes obdurately. Ontario is populated by obdurate voters.
Canadian federalism struggles feebly. Federalism remains a feeble struggle.

This would seem like a great time to blame the government schools for Canadians’ general inability to distinguish adverbs from adjectives. But a quick rundown of the sorts of advertising slogans with which we are continually bombarded, indicates the villain might be elsewhere:

I suppose the so-called creative execs responsible for these tidy grammatical abominations decided the proper adverbs weren’t pithy enough to use in a slogan.

We aren’t above breaking grammatical rules here at the pd.o. Sometimes we want the dramatic effect, sometimes we’re sloppy. (We are none of us English Lit majors here.) I refuse, however, to accept these verb-adjective slogans as appropriate substitutes for any one of the creative solutions to be found within the boundless expanse of the English language.

This is why the advertisers must be opposed at every turn: they are the enemy of beauty and elegance. While I doubt “Think minutely” would have been the epochal campaign that Volkswagen engendered with the “Think small” slogan, this doesn’t excuse CanJet’s smarmy “Fly smart” couplet. Think differently is no less effective than Think different, and it benefits from not setting some of Apple’s customers’ teeth on edge. Namely mine.

Evan Spence

May 3, 2005
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6 Responses to “Grammar Redux”

  1. Evan Says:
    May 3rd, 2005 at 9:55 pm

    Actually, I don’t think there’s too much wrong with Think small, since I’m not convinced small is meant to modify think.

    But I suspect its success as a compaign started this whole slogan problem.

  2. Rick Says:
    May 4th, 2005 at 3:00 am

    I think in a number of your examples the problem is not confusion between adverbs and adjectives but missing nouns i.e.

    • Fly smart kites.
    • Think different thoughts.
    • Drive safe tee-shots.
    • Think small bank accounts.
    • Eat fresh cardboard.
  3. Evan Says:
    May 4th, 2005 at 8:27 am

    Don’t forget:

    Fresh rants and beer every Tuesday.

  4. kj Says:
    May 4th, 2005 at 1:27 pm

    And the snowboard commentator staple:

    He landed that trick solid solidly.

  5. Spel gooder Says:
    May 6th, 2005 at 1:27 pm

    Now if we could just stamp out typos. Someone should start that campaign…or do the new schools spell it campaigh now? Hmmmm?!?

  6. Evan Says:
    May 9th, 2005 at 10:22 pm

    Sometimes when I type quickly, the starting serifs on my ‘n’s look like ‘h’s.

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