The innocuous little adverb was originally used to mean "in fact" - "That tree is actually a fir, not a pine." Or to express surprise or incredulity - "I actually won the lottery!" (Both examples from ...

Years ago, I wrote a column about “whom” and the dangers of using it wrong. What happened next remains one of the weirdest moments in my writing career. A reader sent an email to scold me, but not for ...

Aspiring science-fiction authors receive one piece of advice above all others: Forsake the adverb, the killer of prose. It’s terribly, awfully, horrendously important. But why? Really, adverbs aren’t ...

Ah, the adverb train station. If you want to find out about adverbs, there is no better place. An adverb tells you how something happens. Here is a train moving "quickly" on the track. “Quickly” is an ...

When I first learned that fans of Taylor Swift called themselves Swifties, I smiled. I knew the word Swiftie in a completely different context. The source of my knowledge is not a glamorous global ...