Page 56 - Practical English Usage 3ed - Michael Swan, Oxford

adverbs or adjectives? confusing cases 27
27 adverbs or adjectives? confusing cases
1 adjectives ending in -Iy
Some words ending in -ly are adjectives, and not normally adverbs. Common examples: costly, cowardly, deadly, friendly, likely, lively, lonely, lovely, silly, ugly, unlikely.
She gave me a friendly smile.
Her singing was lovely.
There are no adverbs friendlylfriendlily, lovely/lovelily etc.
She smiled in a friendly way. (NOT She smiletifrierttily.)
He gave a silly laugh. (NOT He laughed siUy.)
Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, early and leisurely are both adjectives and adverbs.
It's a daily paper. It comes out daily. an early train 1got up early.
2 adjectives and adverbs with the same form; adverbs with two forms
Some adjectives and adverbs have the same form: for example, a fast car goes fast; if you do hard work, you work hard. In other cases, the adverb may have
two forms (e.g. late and lately), one like the adjective and the other with -ly. There is usually a difference of meaning or use. Some examples follow; for more detailed information, check in a good dictionary.
bloody Some swearwords (see 575), including bloody (BrE), can be used both as adjectives and as adverbs.
You bloody fool. You didn't look where you were going.....1 bloody did.
clean The adverb clean means 'completely' before forget (informal) and some expressions of movement.
Sorry 1didn't turn up -1 clean forgot.
TIle explosion blew the cooker clean through the wall.
dead The adverb dead is used in certain expressions to mean 'exactly', 'completely' or 'very'. Examples: dead ahead, dead certain, dead drunk,
dead right, dead slow, dead straight, dead sure, dead tired.
Note that deadly is an adjective, meaning 'fatal', 'causing death'. The adverb for this meaning is fatally. Compare:
Cyanide is a deadly poison. She was fatally injured in the crash.
direct Direct is often used informally as an adverb.
TIle plane goes direct from London to Houston without stopping. 50% cheaper - order direct from the factory!
easy Easy is used as an adverb in some informal expressions. Go easy! (= Not too fast!) Take it easy! (= Relax!)
Easy come, easy go. Easier said than done.
fair Fair is used as an adverb after a verb in some expressions.
to play fair to fight fair to hit something fair and square
For the adverb of degree fairly. see 199.
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