This is an All Ears English podcast episode 2382, drive safe or drive safety when to use flat adverbs in English.
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Hello, Aubrey, what's shaking?
I'm great. How are you, Lindsay?
I'm feeling really good today lots of energy.
What are we getting into today?
Well, I have a question to start us out when you say goodbye to someone who's driving Do you say drive safe or drive safely?
Honestly, I usually say drive safe me too.
Yeah. Yeah, but is that promise grammatical?
Sometimes when I say it actually know to be honest, I don't even think about that that it's not technically grammatically correct I just say it because it's what native speakers say.
It's almost more idiomatic.
It's a chunk very accepted but grammatically it should be drive safely but I actually would feel strange saying drive safely and the person might be, they might think it's a grammar mistake because all they've ever heard is drive safe.
Yeah I mean I would say I do hear native speakers also saying drive safely.
I think this is one in my opinion it depends on the region.
Here it would be weird and where I grew up I think people would be like what?
But in a lot of places in the United States they you probably do say drive safely, or depending on a person's love of grammar, or just what their parents said growing up, like, there are all kinds of factors that might affect this.
I love that, yeah, so both are okay.
But regional, it's a personal choice, so this is what we're gonna get into today.
Aubrey, what exactly are we talking about today?
Right, flat adverbs.
So this came up recently where I said real quick instead of really quickly.
This is very common in my regional dialect, correct, accepted, no one sees it as a mistake, but it is a mistake, right?
Grammatically, the correct way to say this would be really quickly.
I need to do this really quickly and add those LYs for the adverbs.
Yeah, that is so interesting.
This is the most real English episode that we've had in a while, although they're all real English episodes, but this one especially.
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So, Aubrey, let's get deeper into it.
What exactly is a flat adverb?
Okay. So, this is any adverb that has the same form as its corresponding adjective.
It does not require adding that ly to function as an adverb that we see at the end of a lot of adverbs, so they are also known as simple adverbs or bare adverbs.
A really good example is fast, right?
How would we use fast as an adjective in a sentence, Lindsay?
We would just say, this car is fast. We're describing the car.
It's an adjective there, but it doesn't change at all when we use it as an adverb.
That car is going really fast. In this case, we don't add an ly, fastly is not a word. It's a flat adverb L -Y is not added, and so this can be a little confusing because the adjective and the adverb look exactly the same.
Yeah, that's confusing because some of these flat adverbs, you would have kind of a choice, like what we said at the top of the show, right?
Drive safely, drive safely depends on where you come from in the US, but with fast, you can't say fastly.
It doesn't exist at all.
Right? This is not ungrammatical.
This is correct grammar to say, the car is going fast. The car is fast. Adjective, adverb, same form.
Because of that, there is a native English speaker grammar mistake that is very accepted in many regional dialects where some adverbs that do need that L -Y, we leave it off, we turn it into a flat adverb, and this is just accepted speech. Okay.
I'm excited to learn more.
So, where do we go from here?
Yeah, well let's share some common flat adverbs where we don't add an L -Y.
Like late, hard, fast, long, high, low, deep, near, and safe.
What's really tricky with a lot of these is if you add an L -Y for many of them, it actually changes the meaning in that word does exist in English like lately, hardly, right, lowly.
These have a totally different meaning.
So, if you make that mistake of adding the L -Y when using it as an adverb, then we're actually going to create communication problems because it has a different meaning." That's kind of a pro tip today for all listeners, right?
And that's fascinating that if we do accidentally try to be grammatically correct, right?
We think we're being grammatically correct.
It could be a totally different word. Oh my gosh.
Exactly. This is so tricky.
I'm really glad you guys are getting details about this.
And as an FYI, if you ask the average native English speaker about flat adverbs, they will have no idea what you're talking about.
This is more like deep grammar, often they don't know the names of things, but they would be able to tell you which one sounds right to them.
Yeah, unless you go to a grammar conference or something, right?
Yes, that's right. Then you're getting grammarians who know what flat adverbs are and they have opinions.
Who will argue all day in the bar about it?
Word nerds. Word nerds, right.
Love it. What are some characteristics, then, of flat adverbs?
Yeah, so they don't usually end in L -Y.
They're often used in colloquial expressions either grammatically or ungrammatically.
They're used to describe when and where something happened, just like any adverb.
But they are also adjectives.
So that can be tricky.
Let's share a couple of them that are correct grammar. We said fast. She walks really fast, used as an adverb here.
What's another one?
Or he got home late.
Or he got home really late.
We can add intensifier there.
Yes. And you would not say lately, he got home lately.
No, that is very confusing because lately is a word that means recently.
Yeah. We'd have to change the sentence.
We're saying something completely different if we say lately.
Yeah. So sometimes native English speakers use flat adverbs ungrammatically in colloquial speech. In informal speech and writing, this is fine.
This is very much accepted to use it without the L Y.
So some examples are drive safe.
Very common, you're going to hear it on TV shows, podcasts and no one's batting an eye.
Absolutely not or write this down real quick or you can add a please there too.
Please write this down real quick.
Super natural and native chunk.
We say this all the time.
Or he always drives slow.
Oh, he always drives slow.
It should be slowly, right, grammatically.
But this because there are flat adverbs, it will just drop the L -Y sometimes.
Very colloquial speech. Or how about be careful.
Those books will fall easy.
And one I just heard yesterday was terrible.
Someone said like, oh, I play terrible.
I play tennis terrible.
You know, that one makes me cringe a little bit more.
Like, very accepted in many regional dialects.
I hear these often, horrible, terrible, they'll just like drop the ly.
Yeah, the terrible makes me cringe a little bit.
In my mind, I have a line with these.
Even easy is a little – It makes me feel a little uneasy when I hear that one.
It's so interesting how it depends on where you grew up, how your parents speak, what that has been pointed out to you because even native English speakers like myself who grew up somewhere where that's very common, maybe someone points it out to me or I start hearing it used correctly and then we start feeling like, oh, that sounds wrong to me.
So this very much depends on the region someone is in and how much they pay attention to language.
Yeah, I mean zooming on this one, you know, be careful, those books will fall easy.
I I would usually say be careful those books will fall easily.
I do think it is, it's a regional thing, it's what you're used to hearing as a child growing up.
But the expression, you know, nice and easy, right?
You know, just take it nice and easy.
I say that, there's no problem there.
Right, there are chunks where this will be an exception for everyone.
Also, just take it easy.
Take it easy, really it should be take it easily.
We would never say that because it's an idiomatic chunk.
Nice and easy, take it easy.
those even though it's incorrect grammar, it's an idiom.
So it works. So it's kind of a personal choice.
We have our lines, like for me, I wouldn't say the terrible one.
What was the example?
That one. I play tennis terrible.
No, no, that's a line for me.
I would say terribly.
I have to say terribly, yes.
And for some, terribly would sound like you're putting on airs, like you're training the down.
So polished and educated, right?
So it's very interesting, there's a lot that goes into this when regional dialects are so different.
But there are times when we should add this LY, right?
Well that's exactly what… Formal or academic writing, native English speakers would not write easy, those books fall easy.
It would be easily.
Because you are up -leveling your grammar when you're writing, you're sending it to a proofreader and if you have those mistakes the proofreader would change it.
Yeah, and I would even say this can be really strategic for our listeners.
It depends on, not just if you're writing formal academic, let's take the easy example.
Be careful those books will fall easy.
You can even say if you're on the East Coast, I would say, if you're in the Northeast, if you're in New York City, Boston, Washington, DC, on the Eastern seaboard. Most of the time, there are certain regions, Abri, like they're– What are people saying around you?
We're going to hear and use easily, terribly, horribly.
You won't hear this.
It's not part of the colloquial language there.
No. No. It's just maybe a little bit more formal or a little more by the book.
But again, I just want to make sure to our listeners, like I would never say, be careful.
Those books will fall easy.
So, you guys can decide what you want to say depending on who you're And listen to what you're hearing, right?
Listen to what you're hearing people say to get an idea for what is part of their regional dialect.
Easy is we want to point out the spelling here.
When a word ends in Y, it is often dropped and it becomes I -L -Y, which is even trickier.
You can't just add L -y.
So pay attention to the spelling there.
And there are some that when in doubt with easy, horrible, terrible, when in doubt, you could go with the correct grammar version, because you may be around someone with, like Lindsay, who isn't as familiar with that mistake, especially if you're in the Northeast. I think that's a good gauge of like which regions do this more often.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
That's so interesting.
You could also – let's say that you don't want to take something easily and turn it into easy, it just doesn't feel right for you.
You could just reword the sentence entirely, right?
Be careful. Those books will fall easily.
Maybe for some reason, you feel self -conscious saying that because it is grammatically correct and it's maybe no one else is saying it grammatically correctly.
You might say something else, Aubrey.
How would you reword that?
You should like, oh, careful those books might fall.
Yeah. Yeah. You could even use a really impressive word. I like to use the word precarious.
Be careful. That's precarious.
Those books are precarious.
That means they might fall easily, but is an impressive word. Use this if you're studying for IELTS.
band nine word. Definitely band nine.
But that brings a question to my mind, right?
So if we're in that scenario where we're hanging out with people who do make these mistakes and it's part of the culture, it's a more easygoing, laid back backyard barbecue type of culture, would you be okay instead of saying – you're avoiding saying it correctly but you're throwing in a really high level vocabulary word. It very much depends on who I'm around, right?
I have a group of friends that are wordsmiths.
They love fun vocabulary and I absolutely would throw it in with a lot of other friends who would think – maybe we think I sound condescending or pretentious, then I would just say, oh, those books might fall.
Careful, those books might fall.
And I would not use that more impressive vocabulary because I don't hear them using it.
I know they don't appreciate it as much. Interesting, and then there's always the thinking for our listeners of this grabs on of be yourself.
You know what I mean?
And maybe you're destined to live somewhere else.
It makes me think of Sweet Home Alabama.
In the end, she ended up coming back to Alabama, but she felt she had a place in New York with a different crowd.
Maybe that's a journey that you'll go on at some point.
So there's a lot there up there to unpack.
Absolutely. A lot of culture in this grammar. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
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Okay, we could talk for half an hour about this topic Aubrey, but let's get into a role play.
Shall we? Yes, let's do it.
So you and I are on a softball team together and we are discussing our batting skills, our batting averages.
Interesting. All right.
Okay. I am running to the batting cages.
Real quick. Want to come?
Nah, nah. I've given up on improving that.
I hit awful, and I just have to accept it.
That's me with both hitting and fielding.
I play terrible. That's why I need practice.
I've tried the batting cages, and I'll hit pitches.
Uh, they're easy, but then can't hit it in a game.
Well, I should go. I got there late last time and they were closed.
I hope you guys are watching on YouTube when I said I play terrible, Lindsay made a face like it was nails on a chalkboard. Oh gosh, cringing.
I almost feel like we have to use a different accent and slow down if we're going to change these words a little bit in a sense, right?
You need to come visit my hometown in Idaho, Lindsay, because I have the same accent as where I grew up, but all of the words absolutely would hear in this conversation just like this.
Okay, interesting, so just natural to me.
The US is so huge. Right?
It's so huge. Yes, that's the thing.
Giant regions. That's why we build our course, The Connected Communicator, and we interviewed people in all different regions of the US.
You can hear those accent differences, vocabulary differences, grammar differences.
Let's go through it.
Let's go through it real quick, Aubrey, shall we?
There we go. So the first one I said was, I'm running to the batting cages real quick.
and grammatically, this should be really quickly.
Part of the reason we're dropping those LYs is we're speaking quickly.
We're saving time. We do this a lot.
We drop words, we drop syllables, and this would be very accepted in many regions.
If you're gonna ask people to do something real quick, you can't be speaking slowly, right?
Exactly. But I would never write this.
If I were writing a book, if I were writing an essay, a paper, I would write that really quickly or even extremely rapidly, I would try to up -level my language.
Or even I would venture to guess even in the same region, if you're in the capital city, if you're in a big city within that region versus going out into the countryside for, like I said, a backyard barbecue on a Sunday and people are relaxed.
Totally, it depends on who you're around, how informal you're being, everything about the situation.
Mm -hmm. Nice. Okay.
I'm struggling with this, but I'll say it.
I said, no, I've given up on improving that.
I hit awful and I just have to accept it.
I wouldn't be able to say it.
You would not say, I hit awful.
I hear this all the time, and it's often used intentionally to really emphasize how bad you are at something.
It would sound overly formal to say, I hit terribly.
I'm terrible at hitting.
Instead, they'll say the verb, and then awful, right?
Yes. I hit awful. I hit awful.
And because it would feel strange to take that word and then add another syllable, because it's almost easier to emphasize it when it's only two syllables.
Yeah, yeah, I do agree that awfully just sounds a little awkward to say.
So I would probably entirely reword the sentence.
I'm terrible at hitting.
I am just awful. Let's see, I might say, I'm just awful at hitting.
I would use it in a different part of the sentence.
And that is grammatical because there you're using it as an adjective, right?
I am awful are awful at hitting.
I am awful at playing tennis." That is correct grammar because that is the adjective form which is the same as the flat adverb.
Interesting. Wow. We're coming up with some good stuff today.
Really interesting.
Okay Aubrey, what else?
This one's just a cringy for me.
Okay. This one's just a cringy for me, YouTube video.
I play terrible. This is one I heard a friend just say yesterday and she is well educated.
She is right, but it was informal speech just to chat between friends, very common at least in the West. Wow.
And in I would say the countryside west, right?
So I mean we're in Phoenix.
It's not countryside.
It's tricky. And she's from Phoenix, you know.
I'm not positive but it's interesting.
I know having grown up in the northeast, you're sort of feeling like, oh, in cities you wouldn't speak like that.
But that's not the case.
If someone grew up where this was common in their regional dialect, in an informal conversation among friends, they would still say this.
if the others were saying it right.
The key is where is everyone else around you from.
Right so. It reminds me a lot of good versus well.
We talk about this sometimes.
A lot of people are gonna say, I'm good, when really grammatically you should say, I'm well.
But you would feel comfortable with that because in your region even though it's a grammar error, it's so common, it's so accepted.
You would maybe say, I'm good and feel okay with it.
Yeah. That is the same for people with terrible and awful.
You know, it's very equivalent.
Interesting. And I think in places like New York or let's say Los Angeles or San Francisco or D .C., I think regional dialects get watered down because you're not really going to be around people from where you come from, right.
You're going to be around people from all over the world and the country.
Yes, and I, having grown up where this was common, but now recognizing it as ungrammatical, I often won't do it even if I'm around someone who might right because I am a little more like you where it like I hear I'm like Yeah, so it is interesting how that does evolve as you aren't hearing it as often interesting Okay, so did we do the terrible and yes we did the terrible and then that easy, right?
I'll hit pitches there easy and this is similar to awful where you're going to be hitting it It would be strange to say, I'll hit pitches they're easy.
If so, maybe you would say easily when you are emphasizing that.
I'll hit pitches they're easy.
That's when we would use that flat adverb.
Interesting. This one's a little more palatable, still not super palatable, but it's a little more palatable for me.
Next one, well, I should go.
I got there late last time and they were closed.
Now, obviously this one is 100 % palatable, right?
Yeah, because this is a flat adverb, that is grammatical, the word late.
We don't add an lie when we're using it as an adverb when we mean that we got there not early the opposite of early.
I got there late last time, right?
If you say lately that has a totally different meaning.
So in this case, correct grammar is a flat adverb.
I got there late. Love that.
Now I am actually really interested to see what we've got on the Business English podcast for our part two of this episode.
This is going to be great.
There are expressions that have flat adverbs.
Like, for example, Take it Easy.
We talked about Aim High, Dress Smart, that are used often at work and in daily conversations.
So be sure you're following the Business English Podcast, we're going to do part two over there.
Yep. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, right?
Good. Okay. Aubrey, what's the takeaway?
We had a lot of thoughts today.
Yeah. A lot of thoughts.
This is really interesting, right?
Even native speakers make mistakes with flat adverbs either intentionally or unintentionally.
so definitely don't stress about these in conversations, right?
If you do want to be grammatical, you want to make sure you're speaking correctly, then you will use the correct version of these adverbs.
But definitely something to not stress about because even native speakers do this.
Yeah. And a chance for a reflection.
I mean how do you want to be?
Do you want to be flexible with your language depending on who you're around?
Is that a key tool for connection?
sometimes it actually is and that's what you're getting at Aubrey or do you want to be adhering to a style of your own speaking that you've developed that's maybe a hybrid of all the places you've lived.
We have a chance to kind of reinvent ourselves with the words we use which is so cool.
Absolutely. But of course, for formal writing in an interview, these are mistakes you would not make because that person giving that interview might care about grammar. They might be like Lindsay cringing if they hear some of these, so you would definitely want to up level your grammar up level your vocabulary in those situations.
Yeah, because I think when people hear grammar mistakes, they make assumptions about intelligence, about competence.
You want to avoid that in those types of situations.
If you want to see me cringing, come on over to YouTube.
All right, I'll see you back here very soon.
Have a good one. See you next time.
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