Too many -ly adverbs
adverb-overuseon by default (info)English
Too many -ly adverbs, which usually prop up a weak verb
Example
Flagged
She quickly walked to the room and quietly opened the door. He really badly needed the report and angrily asked for it.
What chaff prints
1:5 20 -ly adverbs per 1000 words (limit 15)
Fixed
She hurried to the room and eased the door open. He needed the report and demanded it.
What chaff prints
no finding
The rule measures the whole document, so this example was tried with an ordinary passage (about 200 words) after it that gives chaff nothing to report.
How to fix
Fold the adverb into the verb. "Said loudly" becomes "shouted".
Why it matters
An -ly adverb usually marks a weak verb. "Hurried" is shorter and sharper than "walked quickly".
What it does not flag
Documents under 200 words are not measured.
Turning it off or relaxing it
Silence this one spot (in the document)
<!-- stet: adverb-overuse — reason -->
Relax it for the team (the reason is kept as a comment in chaff.yaml)
npx chaffjs relax adverb-overuse --why "reason"
Turn it off for the team (chaff.yaml)
rules:
adverb-overuse: off
Technical details
- Layer
- L3
- Status
- stable
- Severity
- info
- Languages
- en
- Suited to
- blog, business, legal, docs, academic, literature, speech
- Reads from the document
- pos
Levels
Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).
| strict | up to 10 -ly adverbs per 1000 words |
|---|---|
| normal | up to 15 -ly adverbs per 1000 words |
| relaxed | up to 25 -ly adverbs per 1000 words |
By genre
- Runs by default in
- blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, speech/address
- Turned off by the genre in
- legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper, literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play, speech/transcript
- Not suited to, and not run in
- technical/spec, technical/readme
Message
{density} -ly adverbs per 1000 words (limit {limit})
This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/adverb-overuse.yaml