[Your Voice - XIII]
Stephen King said, “The road to hell is paved in adverbs,” but we all know the road to hell is paved in memes (that occasionally use adverbs).
Come to think of it, those are not conflicting claims. They share the same sentiment: misery is communication without voice.
An adverb is often used to make the wrong verb “feel” like the correct verb. What’s needed is the right verb, and that requires work. So, adverbs are lazy. And nothing hides an author’s voice like a lazy choice of words.
A meme is social media drivel. Occasionally they strike an accuracy chord, so we nod along as though they are the bearers of hard-to-speak truths. They’re most likely created by trolling farms that use bots to mine your personal information and internet surfing tendencies and then spit back at you ideologically consistent content. In other words, there’s not even a human behind memes, let alone a voice.
Adverbs and memes are both reminders of the importance of voice—real humans doing the work of crafting language to communicate complex ideas and experience with accurately. Steer clear of the road to hell.
