Shameless Neglect of Adverbs Must Stop!

I have been walking by an advertisement for a law firm every day for the past week, on the way to the courthouse.

I will not name the firm (because, a. my firm does not advertise and b. there is still some controversy in the legal profession about advertising, and c. I am complaining about them and don't really want to incur their wrath), but, I will give you the tag line of their ad:

"We take your personal injury...PERSONAL!"

I want to scream every time I see it. I want to deface the ad with a giant red sharpie marker and change it to add the appropriate "LY" on the end.

One cannot TAKE someone's injury PERSONAL. It must be taken PERSONALLY. The word is being used to describe or modify a VERB. A word used to describe or modify a VERB is an ADVERB. "Personal" is not an adverb. "Personally" is an adverb. Anyone who has successfully completed 8th grade English KNOWS THIS.

Anyone who watched Saturday morning TV in the 70s KNOWS THIS. (HELLO! SCHOOL HOUSE ROCK!! Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here and all that jazz. http://www.schoolhouserock.tv/Lolly.html)

The last time I checked, successful completion of 8th grade English was a prerequisite for admission to law school.

Perhaps I am over-reacting. I know that I often have many typos and omissions in my diary entries here. BUT I AM NOT PUTTING my diary entries on a city bench. You can bet if I was publishing an entry on a city bus bench, I would figure out how to make Blogger's spell check work for me.

I contemplated calling this entry, Stop Adverb Abuse, but, then I couldn't decide if failure to use adverbs, and using adjectives instead, was abuse of Adverbs or abuse of Adjectives. But, I decided, either way, it was adverb neglect.

That is all,
LM