DRUNK GRANDPA, DRUNKENLY SINGING

In the first comic, Grandpa is first loud, then quiet, then bad (you shouldn’t steal), but then he’s sweet, and then very passionate about trains, and, finally, he’s drunk.

In the second comic, the karaoke singer sings very loudly, then too quietly, then unfortunately badly, then sweetly, then very passionately, and, finally, drunkenly.

What changed? The first group are adjectives. The second group are adverbs.

Adjectives describe people and things

An adjective gives us more information about a noun — a person, place, thing or idea.

Look at Grandpa:

Grandpa is loud.

Here, loud describes Grandpa. It tells us what he is like. 

The same pattern works throughout the comic:

• Grandpa is loud.
• Grandpa is quiet.
• Grandpa is bad.
• Grandpa is sweet.
• Grandpa is passionate.
• Grandpa is drunk.

Notice that we often put an adjective after the verb be:

subject + be + adjective

So we can say She is quiet, The children are loud or My neighbours are drunk.

We also use adjectives after verbs that are (kind of) synonyms for “be”: seem, appear or appear to be, look (when it means the same as seem), taste. All of these verbs are kind of like an equal sign in math. Grandpa = loud. So:

He looks crazy. She seems happy. This tastes good. 

Adjectives can also come directly before nouns: a loud neighbour, a quiet room, a bad person, a sweet grandpa, a passionate train enthusiast.

Adverbs describe how we do things

Now look at our karaoke singer. This time, we aren’t really describing the man. We’re describing how he sings.

He sings loudly.

Loudly tells us more about the verb sings. It answers the question:

How does he sing?

He sings loudly.

The same thing happens in the other panels:

Adjective	Adverb	Example
loud	loudly	He sings loudly.
quiet	quietly	He sings quietly.
bad	badly	He sings badly.
sweet	sweetly	He sings sweetly.
passionate	passionately	He sings passionately.
drunk	drunkenly	He sings drunkenly.*

*sometimes we change the adjective more than just adding an -ly. Read more about that below.

This gives us another useful pattern:

subject + verb + adverb (when the verb doesn’t mean =)

She speaks quietly.
He drives badly.
They kissed passionately.

Compare Grandpa with the karaoke singer

This is the key difference:

Grandpa is loud.
The man sings loudly.

In the first sentence, loud describes the person: Grandpa.

In the second, loudly describes the action: singing.

Try another pair:

Grandpa is passionate.
The man sings passionately.

Grandpa himself is passionate — especially when trains are involved! The karaoke singer performs his song in a passionate way.

And another:

Grandpa is sweet.
The man sings sweetly.

Sweet tells us what Grandpa is like. Sweetly tells us what action (the singing) is like.

A useful question to ask yourself is:

Am I describing a person or thing, or am I describing an action?

If you’re describing a person or thing, you need an adjective.

If you’re describing how someone does something, you need an adverb.

Why do so many adverbs end in -ly?

In English, we can make many adverbs by adding -ly to an adjective:

loud → loudly
quiet → quietly
sweet → sweetly
passionate → passionately

But English is English, so of course there are a few complications.

Bad becomes badly: bad + ly → badly. But other words require a spelling change: happy → happily, drunk → drunkenly.  

And not every adverb ends in -ly. Compare:

He is a fast runner.
He runs fast.

Here, fast is the same as both an adjective and an adverb.

There’s also a famous irregular pair:

She is a good singer.
She sings well.

It’s not correct to say, “She sings good” in standard English when we mean that she sings skillfully.

Your turn

Imagine that Grandpa and the karaoke singer meet. Choose the correct form in each sentence:

1. Grandpa speaks loud / loudly.
2. Grandpa is very loud / loudly.
3. The man sings bad / badly.
4. His singing is bad / badly.
5. Grandpa talks passionate / passionately about trains.
6. Grandpa is passionate / passionately about trains.
7. The singer performs the love song sweet / sweetly.
8. The singer’s voice is sweet / sweetly.

Answers: 1 loudly, 2 loud, 3 badly, 4 bad, 5 passionately, 6 passionate, 7 sweetly, 8 sweet.

The simplest rule to remember is this:

Adjectives describe people and things. Adverbs describe actions.

So Grandpa can be loud — so if he starts doing karaoke too, he’ll probably sing loudly.