Adverbs

“Electronical Devices”

Adjectives, Adverbs

My wife saw this on a sign in a high-school attendance office.

Problem:
The adjective is a bastardization of two perfectly good ones.

Explanation:
The sign directed visitors in the office to turn off such devices.

While “electronical” does appear in the Unword Dictionary and the Urban Dictionary on the Web, those dictionaries are not representing that this a proper adjective.

Search www.dictionary.com, in contrast, and you won’t find a match for this nonsense word.

I believe that the sign writer wanted sign readers to turn off cell phones, pagers, etc., and that the sign writer believed at least one of the following:

  • that “electronical” sounded more intelligent than “electrical” or “electronic”;
  • that “electronical” must be correct because it’s so close to “electrical” and “electronic”;
  • that “electronical” must be correct because “electronically” is a valid adverb.

What is disheartening is that a Google search for “electronical” (with the quotation marks) returned about 1,090,000 matches. Fortunately, a search for “electronic” (with the quotation marks) returned about 526,000,000 matches, and a search for “electrical” (with the quotation marks) returned 221,000,000 matches.

We get the solution by reviewing the definitions of “electrical” and “electronic”:

  • “electrical” — related to or operated by electricity
  • “electronic” — of or related to electronics, where “electronics” today usually refers to the science dealing with the flow of electrons in semiconductors (e.g., in cell phones)

Solution:
“Electronic Devices”

“Foxit Reader is a … viewer …, with incredible small size …”

Adjectives, Adverbs, Commas

I saw this here.

Problem:
A comma is missing, or the adjective “incredible” is inappropriate here.

Explanation:
“Foxit Reader is a … viewer …, with incredible small size …” contains two adjectives in a row.

Either the writer wanted each adjective to modify the noun “size”, or the writer wanted to modify the second adjective to modify the first adjective.

If the writer wanted “incredible” and “small” to modify “size”, then a comma should go immediately after the first adjective — yielding the first solution.

If the writer wanted to modify “small”, then a different solution is required.

When one wants to modify adjective Y with adjective X, one must convert adjective X into an adverb.

Converting adjectives to adverbs usually requires adding “ly” and sometimes requires dropping a letter or two.

Converting the adjective “incredible” to an adverb yields “incredibly” — and the second solution.

Solutions:
“Foxit Reader is a … viewer …, with incredible, small size …”
or
“Foxit Reader is a … viewer …, with incredibly small size …”

“I saw him on yesterday.”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Prepositions

I hear this type of grammatical error too frequently.

Problem:
As I have written about “today” and “tomorrow” (both adverbs), “yesterday” is an adverb, so preceding it with the preposition “on” is incorrect.

Explanation:
“Yesterday” already tells you when.

For example, the answer to “When did they start to paint the house?” could be “They started to paint the house yesterday.”

In contrast, “Tuesday” is a proper noun, not an adverb, so the answer to “When did they start to paint the house?” could be “They started to paint the house on Tuesday.”

In other words, the days of the week, which are proper nouns, require the “on” preposition to tell you when, whereas “yesterday” already tells you when.

Solution:
“I saw him yesterday.”