Literally

It's no mystery that the meanings of words evolve. They go in and out of popularity and propriety and, for being the primary method we have for describing our experiences, are by and large bloody unreliable. My  favorite example of this is the word "nice", although there are scores of examples of such words that used to mean one thing, and now are something very different. (But I will spare you my raving over these.)

And now I'm going to open my mouth (but not literally!) on that topic that has the most cursory linguaphile up-in-arms. It started (from what I can gather) with this article decrying the addition of the "figurative" definition of "literally" to the major dictionaries and Google.  Communicators, word-lovers, and Grammar Nazis alike have raged for many years against this egregious misuse by those less attentive than themselves, but this, it seems, was the last straw, and now the Internet is figuratively exploding with grammarian rants and counter-rants and great fervor over this small addition that would seem in line with general linguistic evolution.

Ever So Truly and Totally

I read an article recently--discussing writing lessons from famous authors--in which one of the quotes advised that one eschew the use of adverbs. "What horror," thought I, collector of words that I am. "Why disparage an entire grammatical category?"
Then I thought about the résumés that I have helped develop and the papers that I have edited. They were rife with phrases such as "Enthusiastically participated", "tirelessly pursued", "fervently studied", and "whole-heartedly applied".
The trouble with adverbs, I think, is that they are inherently superlative.  Adverbs' chief job is to modify modifiers (adjectives) or verbs, and thus it is difficult for them to supply distinctive, new information.  Thus in business and academic writing, they come off as flowery and a waste of breath.  In literary situations, the additional time required to read the adverbs can take away from the intensity of a situation and distract the reader from the narrative. Their very presence lessens the impact of what they are describing.
If one "enthusiastically participated" in a study, well, wouldn't one's enthusiasm be more efficiently and effectively conveyed with a more enthusiastic verb, such as "devote"?  And to say that one did something "whole-heartedly" conveys that one may think it acceptable to do that thing with less than one's whole heart. On a résumé such unnecessary qualification suggests that, at times, the applicant does her work with half of her attention and may care very little about her tasks.
The crucial point on adverbs, then, is this: use better words.
Writing is so much more engaging when the words are acute representations of their concepts. Modifying generic adjectives or verbs with exciting adverbs just to try to be creative short-changes the perfectly good, underused words with which English abounds!  Instead of "running quickly", dash!  Do not be merely "very happy"-- be ecstatic, or jubilant! Go forth and--rather than writing--scrawl, jot, scribble and compose with gusto!

Aftershocks

To my wife,
Please don't take it so hard.  When I interrupt you twenty times during your favorite show, and you miss the good part.  When we wake up late and we don't have everything packed for the trip, when the stove won't cooperate and the food won't finish cooking, when the footstools are placed explicitly for the purpose of tripping you.
I understand that it feels like everything is working against you.  I know that you feel like I'm not paying attention, and absorbed in my own world.  But my world is connected to yours, and when yours is shaken mine begins to crumble too.  Please don't yell, because it hurts me, even when you're not yelling at me. It hurts me that you are so controlled by immediate emotions that you can't see their consequences.
This time the plan messed up; this time the vase slipped out of your hand and shattered; this time I burned the food so it's pizza for dinner. But there will be more times.  We can buy toothbrushes to replace the ones I forgot to pack.  The mess from the broken vase can be cleaned up.  There will be plenty more dinners to enjoy.  I am your partner and I love you, and I hate to see you so upset by such small things.

To Mommy and Daddy,
Oh Daddy, I'm sorry. I didn't know that's what would happen. I probably should have, but I don't know the world like you do. I don't know how easily cereal boxes spill and how much it distracts you when I make the dog bark.  I thought it was funny.  I didn't think that those new words I heard you say would make you angry when I said them.
I know you've asked me to clean up my messes a hundred times, Mommy, and you think I ignore you. There's just so much going on that I get distracted. But it scares me when you yell. It makes me want to hide. And then you apologize and are soft and sweet, and I don't know what to think.
Which one is you? Which face should I trust? If I make a mistake, will you yell at me again? How can I learn if I can't tell you things without fear? The world is big and strange, and I don't know my way around. I need you to be a safe place for me.

To my co-worker,
You think it's over quickly and you move on. And maybe your outbursts don't affect the rest of your day. But I feel it. Your secretary feels it. Your boss feels it. We walk on eggshells around you, and we worry what you'll think of us. Are we just "one more thing", adding to your frustration?
I need your help with this project, but I don't want to make your day harder. I'm sure the customer that you're dealing with is terribly aggravating--we've all been there. But when you yell, even if it's not at anyone in particular, you make all of us who hear feel like we're the cause of your frustration.  Your assistant doesn't believe that you'll listen to his ideas, because he hears your comments to yourself about "those idiots trying to change what already works". The manager hesitates to bring you in on the upcoming conference, because he doesn't think you can handle that too.
Maybe it's normal for you.  Maybe all your life people have erupted, then recovered, so to you it is a reasonable reaction to provocation. But at best, it's distracting, and at worst, it hurts our trust in you.
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What makes you yell? When you erupt, is it intended, or does it slip out? What do you do to try and control it?