Common Mistakes with Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives

If you’re a native English speaker, you may have noticed that “the big red house” sounds more natural than “the red big house.” The video below explains the order in which adjectives occur in English:

Practice

Select the adjectives that are in a natural sounding word order for each sentence.

  1. She found a(n) _______ record in her attic
    1. dusty, Jazz, old
    2. old, dusty, Jazz
    3. Jazz, dusty, old
  2. He walked into a pole because he was distracted by a(n) _____ dog.
    1. adorable, tiny, brown
    2. tiny, adorable, brown
    3. tiny, brown, adorable
  3. The crowd was astounded when the professional chess player arrived wearing a(n) ____ suit to his match.
    1. antique, blue, cashmere
    2. cashmere, blue, antique
    3. blue, antique, cashmere
  4. For her daughter’s birthday, she made a(n) _____ doll house.
    1. cute, wooden, yellow
    2. wooden, yellow, cute
    3. cute, yellow, wooden

Adverbs

Only

Have you ever noticed the effect the word only can have on a sentence, especially depending on where it’s placed? Let’s look at a simple sentence:

She loves horses.

Let’s see how only can influence the meaning of this sentence:

  • Only she loves horses.
    • No one loves horses but her.
  • She only loves horses.
    • The one thing she does is love horses.
  • She loves only horses.
    • She loves horses and nothing else.

Only modifies the word that directly follows it. Whenever you use the word only make sure you’ve placed it correctly in your sentence.

Literally

A linguistic phenomenon is sweeping the nation: people are using literally as an intensifier. How many times have you heard things like “It was literally the worst thing that has ever happened to me,” or “His head literally exploded when I told him I was going to be late again”? Some people love this phrase while it makes other people want to pull their hair out.

So what’s the problem with this? According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, the actual definition of literal is as follows:

  • involving the ordinary or usual meaning of a word
  • giving the meaning of each individual word
  • completely true and accurate : not exaggerated[1]

According to this definition, literally should be used only when something actually happened. Our cultural usage may be slowly shifting to allow literally as an intensifier, but it’s best to avoid using literally in any way other than its dictionary definition, especially in formal writing.

Practice

Which of the following sentences use the adverb literally correctly?

  1. A pirate only sails the seas.
  2. Daveed often takes things too literally.
  3. Tommy literally died when he heard the news.
  4. In their vows, they promised to love only each other.
  5. Teddy is literally the best person on the planet.

Mistaking Adverbs and Adjectives

One common mistake with adjectives and adverbs is using one in the place of the other. For example:

  • I wish I could write as neat as he can.
    • The word should be neatly, an adverb, since it’s modifying a verb.
  • Well, that’s real nice of you.
    • Should be really, an adverb, since it’s modifying an adjective

Remember, if you’re modifying a noun or pronoun, you should use an adjective. If you’re modifying anything else, you should use an adverb.

Good v. Well

One of the most commonly confused adjective/adverb pairs is good versus well. There isn’t really a good way to remember this besides memorization. Good is an adjective. Well is an adverb. Let’s look at a couple of sentence where people often confuse these two:

  • She plays basketball good.
  • I’m doing good.

In the first sentence, good is supposed to be modifying plays, a verb; therefore the use of good—an adjective—is incorrect. Plays should be modified by an adverb. The correct sentence would read “She plays basketball well.”

In the second sentence, good is supposed to be modifying doing, a verb. Once again, this means that well—an adverb—should be used instead: “I’m doing well.”

Note: The sentence “I’m doing good” can be grammatically correct, but only when it means “I’m doing good things,” rather than when it is describing how a person is feeling.

Practice

Select the correct modifier for each sentence:

  1. Billy has to work (real / really) hard to be (healthy / healthily).
  2. Kate is really (good / well) with bows. She shoots really (good / well).
  3. Eli reads (quick / quickly), and he retains the information (good / well).

  1. "Literal." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 20 June 2016. ↵