Use -ly Adverbs Appropriately

The -ly adverbs are often mis-used. Adverbs with an -ly suffix denotes in the manner of. For example, promptly literally means in a prompt manner. The problem arises when there are multiple interpretations. Practically, meaning in practice, is used colloquially to mean nearly all. The same is true for Essentially, which literally refers to an essential, i.e. necessary, thing.

We’ve encountered other cases where the meaning is not easily misinterpreted in previous exercises.

Actually Fairly Really
Basically Practically Reasonably
Essentially Rather Virtually
Table 1: Some -ly adverbs which are often improperly used.

Appropriate use of -ly verbs.

1 We can reasonably expect that both types of management influenced the present composition of the plant community.

2 Following Li et al. (2003), we define reliability practically as the agreement between independent measurements of a certain effect.

3 After isolating DNA, traces of ethanol remain, so it essentially has to be dehydrated.

Avoid Generally. Generally is typically well-understood, but in many cases its necessity is debatable. It also encourages unnecessary phrases.

Below, actually and ideally are appropriate since we are contrasting the actual and the ideal manner in which people make decisions.

4 JDM research is generally characterized by efforts to compare how people actually make judgments and decisions with how they should ideally make judgments and decisions.

5 JDM research compares how people actually make judgments and decisions with how they should ideally make judgments and decisions.

Exercise — Replace misleading -ly Adverbs.

Replace the -ly adverb in italics with a more appropriate word:

  • R packages can actually be very simple to develop.
  • Comparisons made during field work suggest that the model represents the salinity field reasonably well near the river mouth.
  • When Skinner retired in 1974, peer-reviewed journals contained essentially no studies of emotion and cognition.
  • Virtually all key metabolic regulators examined to date display conserved functions across phyla.
  • Fairly clear evidence of this has been obtained for chimpanzees and orangutans.
  • MANOVA is essentially a synonym for ANOVA for multivariate linear models.
  • Indeed, corrections were evident for essentially all measures.