The Language Perfectionist: Avoid Adverbial Awkwardness

By Don Hauptman

Consider these three sentences, found in articles I clipped from newspapers:

• "The poet Phillip Larkin famously declared that the English discovered sex in 1963."
• "[Eartha] Kitt once famously told Lady Bird Johnson at a White House luncheon that the Vietnam War was irrational."
• "Donald A. Norman, a Northwestern University professor and author of Emotional Design and other books, has famously argued that attractive things work better.'"

Why is the word famously used to describe these utterances? Famously is an adverb, which modifies a verb. Were these statements made in a famous manner? Not likely. Rather, the writers mean that the statements themselves are famous. So why not say that?

The use of famously in this sense is not only incorrect but trendy and pretentious. Linguists call such usages "vogue words." Oddly enough, I could find only a couple of criticisms of this misuse in the many dictionaries and usage guides I consulted. The authorities may need time to catch up with fashions.

In the meanwhile, I recommend avoiding the word. As a poster on a blog commented, with evident irritation: "The word 'famously' should be drawn and quartered, burned at the stake, then fed to the pigs. ... The word provides neither light nor heat."

[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was a direct-response copywriter. He is author of the wordplay books Cruel and Unusual Puns and Acronymania, and is now writing a new book that also blends language and humor.]
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