On 14-May-09, at 9:34 PM, John Alexander wrote:

> As far as I know, "quickly" has been the adverb form and "quick"  
> the adjective form for some time now. Dictionaries often list  
> "quick" as a colloquial adverb only and not a formal one.

The OED notes "Now usually considered less formal than quickly, and  
found chiefly in informal or colloquial contexts." The now at the  
beginning of that sentence is of interest. The entry has quotations  
for quick as an adverb from 1300 until the present day with  
everything in between, and with both formal and informal examples.

In other words, this is not a change, but a continuation, though  
perhaps we are currently on the ebb of an -ly-ful wave. The Corpus of  
Current American English shows a slight decline in -ly adverb  
frequency from 1990-2008 with 11,515 instances per million words in  
1990-1994, 11, 291 in '95-'99, 11,146 in 200-2004, and 11,074 in  
2005-2008 where, over the same period, all adverb actually increased  
in frequency from 35,072 PMW to 35,373.

The Time Corpus shows the same overall increase in adverb use, but  
for -ly adverbs, it shows a gradual increase from the 1920s with a  
peak in 1970s followed by a drop off, today's levels being about the  
same as they were a century ago.

Also, check out Jan Freeman's "The Word" column from Sept 17, 2006.
<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/09/17/ 
adverb_is_as_adverb_does/>

Best,
Brett

-----------------------
Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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