Title
Use Sparingly
Document Type
Essay
Annotation
Addresses the question of whether the use of fewer adverbs makes for better writing within the literary canon. Blatt analyzes Hemingway’s words in ten novels ranging from The Torrents of Spring to True at First Light to prove mathematically the author’s aversion to adverbs ending in ly. Concludes that Hemingway’s classics, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, contain fewer adverbs while his critically panned True at First Light uses the most.
Published in
Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing
Date
2017
Pages
9-29
COinS
Citation
Blatt, Ben. “Use Sparingly.” In Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing, 9-29. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.