> A British example of the dropping of adverbial -ly.

It is the general practice in England, though it would be de rigueur to draw
anyone's attention to it, for all sports commentators (except for those on
the cricket, rugby union and athletic circuits) to speak with a
working-class accent, syntax and vocabulary.  Cricket and rugby union have a
strong 'public-school' (i.e. private school) connection, even to the use of
public-schoolboy nicknames (e.g. 'Blowers' for Henry Blofeld).  For other
sports, to take snooker and soccer as examples, it would be the height of
oddity for someone to use the parlance of the upper classes.  This is the
pattern for all BBC spots programmes covering them.  One commentator, Adrian
Chiles, even speaks with an exaggeratedly working-class accent.  There are
anomalies, for the commentator (always male) will sometimes betray his
education by using vocabulary outside what would be expected, but that goes
unnoticed.  A recurring feature is the complete absence of the adverbial
-ly:  e.g. 'He played that safety shot fantastic', 'He got out of that
snooker magnificent', 'He moved neat to stop him heading the ball',  'He
does his passing marvellous'.  If it is the common speech that always wins
out in the long run, it looks as if 'ly' will disappear 'ever so quick'.

Edmond


Dr. Edmond Wright
3 Boathouse Court
Trafalgar Road
Cambridge
CB4 1DU
England

Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/elw33/
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Bill, I agree completely. My observation is quite different from yours, and
> I high-jacked your topic to drop my tangential curiosity on ATEG. Sorry
> about that!
> 
> I DO know what you mean though; I'm not sure what to make of it most of the
> time. I often chalk it up to processing issues because so many of my
> students seem to struggle with cognitive overload when it comes to the
> writing process. For so many reasons, they speed write, trying to force the
> core content of their ideas (which they first twist and gnarl into bulky,
> stilted constructions that they think I expect) onto the page before they
> "lose" the thought completely. Perhaps some of the grammatical nuts and
> bolts are getting lost along the way. In any case, I agree with you that
> these occurrences are not always dialect-based and are a written, not
> spoken, phenomenon.
> 
> John Alexander
> 
> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:23 PM, Spruiell, William C
> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> 
>>  John,
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> People who don¹t make an ³X vs. X-ly² distinction in writing also don¹t, as
>> you point out, make it in speech either. That¹s more what I think of as an
>> effect of normal language change; people are writing what they actually say,
>> whether or not a usage guide would approve of it. The students who are
>> dropping the ­ing suffixes do say it. It¹s almost as if they¹re classing it
>> with expression such as ³ummŠ² or the ³like² that¹s, like, used to, like,
>> mark, like, hesitation.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Bill Spruiell
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> *From:* Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:
>> [log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *John Dews-Alexander
>> *Sent:* Thursday, May 14, 2009 6:58 PM
>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>> *Subject:* Re: Suffix-dropping
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I've been amazed at the loss of the derivational suffix -ly that routinely
>> marks adverbs.
>> 
>> Bill's talking about inflectional suffixes, I know, but I couldn't help
>> mentioning the loss of -ly.
>> 
>> I'm not one to cling to language bits that are rusting out and
>> disappearing, but it really took me by surprise that -ly is not a productive
>> part of the language for many speakers.
>> 
>> If you focus on it and really listen to current language usage on
>> television (both scripted and unscripted), in radio, and with the people you
>> encounter, you'll notice it too.
>> 
>> John Alexander
>> 
>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I¹ve read a ton of student papers over the past two weeks, and based on
>> this batch and those from the last couple of years, I¹m starting to get the
>> impression that a greater percentage of my students every year are dropping
>> inflectional suffixes (plurals, tense-markers) and finding it difficult to
>> notice the omissions when proofreading (I haven¹t been formally counting, so
>> I could be mistaking something I¹ve just noticed for a trend, though).  I¹ve
>> always seen some of this in examples where the suffix isn¹t audible in
>> normal speech, particularly  if the suffix is well on the way to being a
>> kind of fossil in the particular expression(e.g. ³ice tea² ­ you can¹t hear
>> the realization of the {-ed} suffix before [t], and ³iced² in that
>> expression is probably a unitary adjective rather than a participle for most
>> speakers who do use the ­ed in writing). That¹s absolutely normal, and over
>> time the suffix-less form can become the norm (³ice cream² used to be ³iced
>> cream²).
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> What I¹m seeing, though, are forms like ³I was read this book² or ³These
>> short story areŠ.²; they¹re in papers written by native English-speakers who
>> don¹t speak any of the dialects that would normally drop those suffixes, and
>> the same students do use the suffixes in speech (it¹s exactly the reverse of
>> the usual situation, in which students don¹t know they have to write bits
>> that they don¹t say). If I draw attention to a line in which there¹s a
>> missing ­ing, etc., the students frequently **can¹t** see anything unusual
>> about it; their usual reaction is to look at it for a minute, then get rid
>> of a comma (if there is one) or add one (if there isn¹t).  It¹s that
>> inability to notice the ³gap² that I¹m particularly intrigued by. If I read
>> the section out loud, they immediately notice the omission (and I then tell
>> them that they need to coerce friends into reading papers out loud for them
>> as a coping strategy). It¹s not a language issue at all; it¹s just an
>> orthographic one.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I know similar effects can be associated with mild forms of dyslexia, but I
>> find it hard to believe that fully 15 - 25% of the student population is
>> even mildly dyslexic.   I realize this is starting to sound like a variant
>> of ³Geezer Rant #325A; Those Darn Kids Won¹t Write Right² but I¹m curious
>> about whether anyone else is noticing similar patterns, or whether this has
>> been common all along and I¹ve somehow managed not to notice it (which,
>> given the rest of this post, would be rather amusing for everyone but meŠ).
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ---- Bill Spruiell
>> 
>> Dept. of English
>> 
>> Central Michigan University
>> 
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