# doesn't <heavily> rain  [adverb of manner: position]



## mionguyen

Hi,

Can I say "It doesn't heavily rain"? Is it grammatically correct? Does it sound natural to native speakers? 

Thank you.

mionguyen


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## Andygc

No, because the word order is wrong. "It doesn't rain heavily."


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## velisarius

Maybe it "heavily rains" over on the other side of the Atlantic, but like Andy I would never say that.
_
It doesn't rain heavily on the plain... It never ever rains heavily on the plain._


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## RedwoodGrove

It doesn't rain heavily in Death Valley. 

Where the adverb comes before or after the verb is hard to explain. Is this your question?


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## Andygc

Perpend, in your version of English perhaps, but not in mine. The "situation" is that mionguyen has asked if the sentence "It doesn't heavily rain." is correct. There's no other "situation", and given that, the sentence is wrong. 

Why do you want to cause confusion for somebody learning English by imagining context requiring abnormal usage when that context doesn't exist in the question? To make it worse, you don't provide a valid example of a sentence which illustrates your point, so we must guess at what you might mean.


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## perpend

RedwoodGrove said:


> It doesn't rain heavily in Death Valley.
> 
> Where the adverb comes before or after the verb is hard to explain. Is this your question?



Exactly. It could go either way.
A) It doesn't rain heavily in Death Valley.
B) It doesn't heavily rain in Death Valley.

Both sound normal to me.

It would depend on your climate around the world to determine what's appropriate in any given rain (or not) season.


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## perpend

mionguyen said:


> Can I say "It doesn't heavily rain"? Is it grammatically correct? Does it sound natural to native speakers?
> mionguyen



Hi, mio---Can you provide more context and explain what it happening?  It's a very good question.


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## velisarius

Adverbs of frequency can go before the main verb - _I often see him here. I usually go in to work on Saturday._
Some adverbs of manner may precede the verb when there's an object: _I greedily ate all the cakes.

Adverbs of manner
_
There may be exceptions to these guidelines, but the advice at the linked page (Edufind.com) seems good.

Also this:BBC World Service | Learning English | The Flatmates - Language Point 75


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## Loob

I can't think of any situation in which I would use "It doesn't heavily rain" instead of "It doesn't rain heavily".


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## velisarius

Is this because "rain" is (usually) intransitive? _He heavily stressed the importance of punctuality. The rain heavily beat down (on) the crops in the field.

Edit: _In the words of the song: _It's raining men. It's heavily raining men._


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## Andygc

velisarius said:


> Is this because "rain" is (usually) intransitive?


Yes, I think so. Your "Adverbs of manner" link seems a good summary. It doesn't mention intransitive verbs, but it uses them in its examples.


perpend said:


> It would depend on your climate around the world to determine what's appropriate in any given rain (or not) season.


What possible effect can local climate have on the position of an adverb of manner?


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## perpend

It would have to due with precipitation in that local climate, and how it's perceived.


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## velisarius

perpend said:


> It would have to due with precipitation in that local climate, and how it's perceived.



I interpret that as meaning you would use it for emphasis, though it's difficult to understand you. I don't agree. It's not how we would emphasise the heavy rain, or the lack of heavy rain, or the surprise we feel at that lack. There are other ways to emphasise "heavily" in such a sentence - without resorting to unnatural sentences.


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## RedwoodGrove

Keep with the basics. The basic usage is:

"It rains heavily ..."


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## Albatrosspro

It's a word order that is less common now than it was a hundred years ago. There are far worse problems for a learner than sounding _just barely old-fashioned_.


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## velisarius

_It heavily rained bombs all night over the besieged city _might be possible (transitive use of "rain").Edit: I don't think so. 

Albatrosspro, do you mean that you are advising a learner that the proposed usage is acceptable? I'm not sure I understand what you are implying here,


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## mionguyen

velisarius said:


> Adverbs of frequency can go before the main verb - _I often see him here. I usually go in to work on Saturday._
> Some adverbs of manner may precede the verb when there's an object: _I greedily ate all the cakes.
> 
> Adverbs of manner
> _
> There may be exceptions to these guidelines, but the advice at the linked page (Edufind.com) seems good.
> 
> Also this:BBC World Service | Learning English | The Flatmates - Language Point 75


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## mionguyen

Thank you for your help and your helpful links.

I am studying adverb of manners and I find it so interesting that I have quite a few questions. Through your explanations, I have really learn a lot. As I delve into this type of adverb, I am still confused by the case in which there is the main verb and auxiliary verb. Like below:

1/ It doesn't rain heavily. (I know this one is ok)
2/ It doesn't heavily rain. (I know it is not ok, thanks to your explanations)
3/ Sarah doesn't clearly speak. (based on what I have learnt, this one is wrong too)
4/ Sarah doesn't clearly speak her name/Sarah doesn't speak her name clearly. (these two are correct)

Am I correct with number 3 and 4? I would like to give a few more examples to fully understand this point.

Thank you very much.


mionguyen


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## mionguyen

perpend said:


> Hi, mio---Does that mean that that is the context?


Dear Perpend,

I very much thank you for helping me in this point of grammar. 

I read my grammar book and I see the example "It doesn't rain heavily."; but it doesn't mention whether an adverb can stay between an auxiliary and the main verb like the one I have just asked : "It doesn't heavily rain."

Adverbs of manner really spark my curiosity. I see there are many rules for their position in a sentence.


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## perpend

_(I deleted some of my posts because this query isn't what it started as.)_


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## Albatrosspro

From Fowler Modern English Usage, "...the main object of this section is to stress the certain fact that there is no objection whatever to dividing a compound verb by adverbs." This has (yet again) become a controversial point; I wince a little when I see you write that there are "many rules for their position in a sentence". I see I am in the minority here, so I won't push my case too hard, but here is one competing viewpoint:

"It doesn't heavily rain."

Grammatical? 
Sound natural-- I can imagine a native speaker saying this? 
Sound natural-- If I heard this in a movie or read it in a book, I wouldn't get out of my chair? 
It is the _most _natural, common, and idiomatic way to phrase this sentiment?  Probably, 

I find it a bit hard to believe that some users have never heard this, would never dream of it, etc.


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## Andygc

Albatrosspro said:


> I find it a bit hard to believe that some users have never heard this, would never dream of it, etc.


Believe it. It depends on the type of adverb and whether or not the verb is transitive. There's no general objection whatever to such division. The objections are specific.

"It doesn't heavily rain."

Grammatical?  subject to debate. In my opinion, no.
Sound natural-- can I imagine a native speaker saying this? 
Sound natural--   If I heard this in a movie or read it in a book, I wouldn't get out of my chair.  Why would I want to get out of my chair just because somebody is mangling English?
Is it the _most _natural, common, and idiomatic way to phrase this sentiment statement?   



Albatrosspro said:


> It's a word order that is less common now than it was a hundred years ago. There are far worse problems for a learner than sounding _just barely old-fashioned_.


Do you have any evidence to support your claim that positioning adverbs of manner as in "It doesn't heavily rain." was standard English a hundred years ago?


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## Albatrosspro

First of all, I wasn't one to make it general. In my first post I was speaking about the case at hand.

No, I don't have a dossier on that subject (though you seem to have misconstrued my point anyway) so let's just move on.

Since this all seems to go to the type of adverb, I'm not sure this is an adverb of manner. Is the rain actually heavy? Is it raining in the manner of heaviness? Since no one is out there putting raindrops on a scale, I think "heavily" comes closer to degree/frequency than to manner.

It often rained.
It greatly rained.
It sparsely rained.
It heavily rained.

In a drizzle that lasts all week, it rains "more heavily" than it does in a quick thundershower, in my opinion.


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## Andygc

You made it general by quoting Fowler's general statement.

The only one of these I can accept is the first. The others all describe the manner in which it rained and in my version of English they are not optional; they are wrong.

It often rained. 
It greatly rained. 
It sparsely rained. 
It heavily rained. 



Albatrosspro said:


> No, I don't have a dossier on that subject (though you seem to have misconstrued my point anyway) so let's just move on.


No. You have made a claim that an English learner who says "It doesn't heavily rain." would sound "_just barely old-fashioned_." If you are going to say things like that in a language forum aimed at learners of English, you need to provide some evidence that what is now nonstandard was once standard.

Here's mine, a Google ngram for it heavily rained,it rained heavily. Note the complete absence of results for "it heavily rained". If a learner says "It doesn't heavily rain." he won't sound "_just barely old-fashioned", he'll sound just plain wrong._


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## Albatrosspro

I'll plead my case with a few different parts.

On the history part, I'm afraid I still have no evidence that this expression was more common in the past than it is today. (Please note that I never said it was standard.) My judgment was based on its status as a freer and more poetical usage (i.e., when word placement would deviate for meter), and such usages were more common in an age of greater circulation of poetry.

Thank you for compiling that chart. One thing I can say is that it is incomplete, since according to Google no one has ever written "it heavily rained", which is quite impossible. Though it certainly does seem rare.

I'm not sure that the distinction between manner and degree/frequency has been brought out enough. "Often" is ok; that must allow always, never, sporadically. The WR definition of sparse gives "thinly scattered or distributed", which is practically frequency itself by one meaning. Greatly fits the bill for an adverb of degree more than manner. Which leaves heavily: my assertion goes unanswered that heavily does, or can perfectly reasonably, mean frequency rather than severity (to be specific, inches rain per unit time). A _heavy_ rain is doubtless a hard one, but "it rained heavily this winter"? If this intends frequency of rain, or portion of time spent raining, by your own definition, you must consider a flip. After giving me such a hard time, dismissing my examples with "the only one I can accept" is a bit blithe of you.

Even so, taking your adverb of manner + intransitive verb rule at value. Unless I'm mistaken, that would forbid all of the following: _I quickly ran home, She suddenly arrived, He courageously jumped, _and _They eventually died. _Perhaps they are considered faults of style; I'm not sure about that -- I don't see how they can be ungrammatical -- but surely they are not unnatural.

Finally, back to our sentence at hand. At least two users disagreed with the point of view that this phrasing was necessarily unnatural. It just so happens that both of us are speakers of American English. Maybe we can put down the disagreement to geographic differences ("naturalness" being so subjective) or leave this aspect open as a topic to explore.

I have noticed that the quality of discussion in this thread has taken a turn for the abrupt and impolite, and I'm sorry if I did anything to contribute to that. Hey, a little perspective here: we're all trying to figure out what works and what doesn't; no one is trying to dupe poor foreigners. Please let's give each other the benefit of the doubt, and try to watch how we phrase things.


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## perpend

Albatrosspro said:


> I'll plead my case with a few different parts.
> 
> On the history part, I'm afraid I still have no evidence that this expression was more common in the past than it is today. (Please note that I never said it was standard.) My judgment was based on its status as a freer and more poetical usage (i.e., when word placement would deviate for meter), and such usages were more common in an age of greater circulation of poetry.
> 
> Thank you for compiling that chart. One thing I can say is that it is incomplete, since according to Google no one has ever written "it heavily rained", which is quite impossible. Though it certainly does seem rare.
> 
> I'm not sure that the distinction between manner and degree/frequency has been brought out enough. "Often" is ok; that must allow always, never, sporadically. The WR definition of sparse gives "thinly scattered or distributed", which is practically frequency itself by one meaning. Greatly fits the bill for an adverb of degree more than manner. Which leaves heavily: my assertion goes unanswered that heavily does, or can perfectly reasonably, mean frequency rather than severity (to be specific, inches rain per unit time). A _heavy_ rain is doubtless a hard one, but "it rained heavily this winter"? If this intends frequency of rain, or portion of time spent raining, by your own definition, you must consider a flip. After giving me such a hard time, dismissing my examples with "the only one I can accept" is a bit blithe of you.
> 
> Even so, taking your adverb of manner + intransitive verb rule at value. Unless I'm mistaken, that would forbid all of the following: _I quickly ran home, She suddenly arrived, He courageously jumped, _and _They eventually died. _Perhaps they are considered faults of style; I'm not sure about that -- I don't see how they can be ungrammatical -- but surely they are not unnatural.
> 
> Finally, back to our sentence at hand. At least two users disagreed with the point of view that this phrasing was necessarily unnatural. It just so happens that both of us are speakers of American English. Maybe we can put down the disagreement to geographic differences ("naturalness" being so subjective) or leave this aspect open as a topic to explore.
> 
> I have noticed that the quality of discussion in this thread has taken a turn for the abrupt and impolite, and I'm sorry if I did anything to contribute to that. Hey, a little perspective here: we're all trying to figure out what works and what doesn't; no one is trying to dupe poor foreigners. Please let's give each other the benefit of the doubt, and try to watch how we phrase things.



Hear hear! Especially this part:
Hey, a little perspective here: we're all trying to figure out what works and what doesn't; no one is trying to dupe poor foreigners. Please let's give each other the benefit of the doubt, and try to watch how we phrase things.

Would an Albatross lie? 

I thought of this, where I consider "to sigh" to be intransitive.
She/he heavily sighed.

One could also say "She/he sighed heavily".

If it were raining dogs and cats, then it's transitive: It heavily rained dogs and cats.

"It rained heavily dogs and cats" would be odd if not wrong.

One could say both "It intermittently rains" and "It rains intermittently".

I could imagine: In the Sierras they got downpours. They get sheets/buckets of rain. Here in the desert, *it doesn't heavily rain*.

Mio seems clear enough that it's something he/she is studying, so let's entertain the spectrum, and not automatically strike and/or rule out certain trains of thought.

Mio can sift through it, as far as I can tell from his/her posts. 

If not, then a dialogue occurs. No one gets hurt, and we aren't broadbrushing, or making it black and white.


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## Andygc

The Google ngram is based on Google's library of digitised books. It does not draw on a general internet search. A general internet search is an effective way of finding good and bad English.

I'm not giving you a hard time dismissing your examples. I just don't understand how you can consider "greatly", "sparsely" and "heavily" as anything other than adverbs of manner when used with "to rain". I have read what you have written, and I still don't understand. Looking at your new examples, "quickly", "suddenly" and "courageously" are all adverbs of manner, "eventually" is not. That means that, for me, they have to be:
_I ran home quickly
She arrived suddenly
He jumped courageously_ 
_They eventually died or They died eventually. 

The same goes for perpend's "_She/he heavily sighed." and  "It intermittently rains". Those, for me, have to be  _"_She/he sighed heavily." and  "It rains intermittently." I have no problem agreeing with <"It rained heavily dogs and cats" would be odd if not wrong.> It's wrong because the adverb has been placed between the verb and what might be considered the object. I find "It heavily rained dogs and cats." odd, but much odder than "It rained dogs and cats heavily." but that's because "dogs and cats" ("cats and dogs" in BE) is an idiomatic phrase which means "heavily" and functions as an adverbial. Why would anybody want to say "it rained heavily heavily"? Again, perpend's "Here in the desert, it doesn't heavily rain." is, to me, unacceptable.

I would be interested to see the opinions of other AE speakers on this subject.


perpend said:


> Please let's give each other the benefit of the doubt, and try to watch how we phrase things.


Expressing an opinion clearly as an opinion ("in my version of English", "for me") and in plain English is neither abrupt nor impolite. Expecting people to support statements with evidence is not impolite.


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## velisarius

Let's hope more members (especially speakers of  AE) will provide some input here. 

I would hesitate to "give the benefit of the doubt" in this case. There's no doubt in my mind, and no evidence has been given to suggest that "It heavily rained" is grammatically correct. It may "sound OK" to some, but that's a very subjective view.

I  think there may be some confusion in some members' minds about being "creative" and playing with one's own language - there's nothing wrong with that. My view is that we should bear in mind that people come to EO to learn our language and that putting forward unconventional or idiosyncratic usage as a model is not helpful. It could even be construed as mischievous.


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## perpend

velisarius said:


> My view is that we should bear in mind that people come to EO to learn our language and that putting forward unconventional or idiosyncratic usage as a model is not helpful. It could even be construed as mischievous.



It's clear from Mio's #18 that he or she gets it. Why so prescriptive veliarius? Is this issue so black and white for you?

Why not entertain the topic: _adverb of manner_

I think that's mio's topic.

Albatross has eloquently stated that it's not 100% clear. I'm quite clear that mio finds the dialogue helpful. Focus on that.


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## velisarius

Why don't you yourself explain adverbs of manner to mio, perpend?  I'll be interested to see how you go about it. I've had my say. I'll go and focus on more productive threads.


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## Andygc

mionguyen said:


> Sarah doesn't clearly speak her name/Sarah doesn't speak her name clearly. (these two are correct)


My apologies for not responding to this, mionguyen. I don't think BE speakers would accept "Sarah doesn't clearly speak her name" as standard English. Althougn there is no general objection to adverbs coming between the auxiliary verb and the main verb, there is a specific objection in BE to adverbs of manner falling in that position. "She doesn't often speak her name" is perfectly normal. "She doesn't often speak her name clearly" is also fine, but not "She doesn't clearly speak her name often."

PS A Google search for "it doesn't heavily rain" finds 5 results. This thread, and two other texts, each repeated.


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## Albatrosspro

Andygc said:


> I just don't understand how you can consider "greatly", "sparsely" and "heavily" as anything other than adverbs of manner when used with "to rain".


"To rain greatly", adverb of manner, could only mean that the rain was grand or magnificent; as a quantity or amount, it is clearly an adverb of degree, and is listed as such on several grammar websites. "Sparsely" can mean geographic sparseness, in which case I see adverb of manner, but if it means sparseness through time -- "it rained only sparsely last week; twice that I can remember" -- it must be an adverb of frequency, since frequency is what it indicates. "Heavily" is not the least, but the most ambiguous in this regard. _"The 1977-1979 period was comparatively light for rain in the Amazon, but in 1980-1982, it rained heavily"_-- are we saying that there was _a lot_ of rain? If so, how can this escape the classification of degree? I understand that "heavily" will sometimes mean hard within a narrow window of time, i.e. a deluge, when the speaker wants to emphasize the weighty (almost literally "heavy") quality; but it's still doubtful if this forces adverb of manner over degree, and if it does, then "substantially", "significantly", "extremely", and "wonderfully" must all forgo their uses as adverbs of degree as well. On top of all that, as I have said a few times, I can imagine an adverb of frequency here, but I'm fine sticking to degree.



Andygc said:


> Looking at your new examples, "quickly", "suddenly" and "courageously" are all adverbs of manner, "eventually" is not. That means that, for me, they have to be:
> _I ran home quickly
> She arrived suddenly
> He jumped courageously
> They eventually died or They died eventually.
> _



I'm hung up on the "they have to be"-- are you saying that they have to be, in your opinion, because the others I gave seem as you read them unnatural? Or is this purely based on plugging into a rule? I've checked three classics in grammar and usage on my shelf, just to confirm, and can't find mention of any such adverb rule. If anything they dismiss the importance of proper/improper adverb placement. (All follow British English incidentally.) I picked these examples because the idea that the sentences as I gave them are wrong to native English speakers is bizarre enough, to me, that I really think it should cause us to question this would-be rule a bit more closely. For what it's worth, Google search: "he courageously jumped" (231)/"he jumped courageously" (37); "i quickly ran home" (11,800)/"i ran home quickly" (3,430), etc.



Andygc said:


> Expecting people to support statements with evidence is not impolite.



That is not what I was referring to. If you'd like, I'd be happy to clarify, but the PM feature might be better for that.



velisarius said:


> Let's hope more members (especially speakers of  AE) will provide some input here.
> 
> I would hesitate to "give the benefit of the doubt" in this case. There's no doubt in my mind, and no evidence has been given to suggest that "It heavily rained" is grammatically correct. It may "sound OK" to some, but that's a very subjective view.
> 
> I  think there may be some confusion in some members' minds about being "creative" and playing with one's own language - there's nothing wrong with that. My view is that we should bear in mind that people come to EO to learn our language and that putting forward unconventional or idiosyncratic usage as a model is not helpful. It could even be construed as mischievous.



Altogether I'd say that this point of view is pretty unreasonable. Are you actually suggesting that some people here are _intentionally_ trying to mislead others? If not, then (the way I read your statement) you are suggesting that even if a user is being honest and sharing his/her impressions, this is still considered "mischievous" in the case that it disagrees with the "correct" (your? a mod's? that of a website that you discovered five minutes ago?) view.



Andygc said:


> PS A Google search for "it doesn't heavily rain" finds 5 results. This thread, and two other texts, each repeated.


That's a good case, but even so, a caution.

Total published books in English estimated 129 million, @ 100,000 words each = 1.29 x 10^13 published words
Total words in English 1 million. Total 2-word combinations = 10^12, 3-word = 10^18, 4-word = 10^24...

So, the number of two-word sequences in all books ever published is about equal to all possible two-word combinations, but unique sequences are much less since a huge majority of these in books are duplicated. For three-word and higher, the number of possibilities shoots far beyond what you could ever find published.

Sure, many/most of these theoretical combinations will make nonsense. But as a matter of principle, just because you can't find hits with something doesn't make it wrong. Is this still a good "fast check" for people learning English? Yes, definitely with short, common phrases. But then, people find new ways to say things all the time, with different shadings of meaning; learners are not exempt from this, even if they are not specifically looking for it. 

Finally, really quickly I want to explain how I myself would classify "It doesn't heavily rain", since I think I've only done so piecemeal. (Ahem) Here goes-- "Unusual and less common, though grammatical; perhaps poetical. For an American to say this in speech, I'd think it was slightly odd but not very much so. For that reason, I would have to get pretty far down the list of grievances before I was ready to call this unnatural."


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## Andygc

Albatrosspro said:


> I'm hung up on the "they have to be"


I wrote 


Andygc said:


> That means that, *for me*, they have to be


I thought that was pretty obviously an opinion. The other BE contributors to this thread have taken the same position as I have on "It doesn't heavily rain", "It heavily rained" and similar sentences. We lack any AE support other than perpend's musings for your position, which is a pity. I have nothing to add.


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## Albatrosspro

Albatrosspro said:


> I'm hung up on the "they have to be"-- _are you saying that they have to be, in your opinion, because the others I gave seem as you read them unnatural? Or is this purely based on plugging into a rule?_



This was the point I was hoping to clarify, since your phrasing of


Andygc said:


> Looking at your new examples, "quickly", "suddenly" and "courageously" are all adverbs of manner, "eventually" is not. *That means* that, for me, they have to be:



suggests that it's the presumed status of these as adverbs of manner that is requiring your placement. I'm curious how you reconcile this rule with idiomatic sentences such as these, but even more importantly, we were asked


mionguyen said:


> Does it sound natural to native speakers?



Alas, it is is a pity that we don't have more voices in here, from either side, but if I stopped in and found a monstrosity like this, I'm not sure I'd get involved either. 

I'm fine winding this down, since it does seem like there is a lack of interest to keep going. But on the off chance that mionguyen or anyone else has made it this far, I want to give what for me is the takeaway. Ultimately, rules are only helpful if they simplify a problem. Subject-verb agreement is a great example of something it would be impossible to do without. But when the zeal for rules collides with the natural complexity of a language, you risk making a problem worse. Now, something that was a problem of convention becomes a matter of memorizing rules, and when those rules fail (as they often do), you need a list of exceptions and counter-exceptions. If you look through this thread, in my opinion, once it started to focus on adherence to a rule, it began to deviate from usefulness. My goal in breaking down the rule, and looking for justifications for the less common usage, was to show the wild goose chase a language learner would be forced to go on to understand it him/herself. All this when we could have been helping with the building blocks: experience and pattern-recognition.


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## Loob

Let's take you back to helping mionguyen, then, Albatrosspro.


mionguyen said:


> Hi,
> 
> Can I say "It doesn't heavily rain"? Is it grammatically correct? Does it sound natural to native speakers?
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> mionguyen


Would you advise mionguyen to say "It doesn't heavily rain"?


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## Albatrosspro

I'm repeating myself, but I would say the phrasing is


Albatrosspro said:


> "unusual and less common, though grammatical; perhaps poetical. For an American to say this in speech, I'd think it was slightly odd but not very much so. For that reason, I would have to get pretty far down the list of grievances before I was ready to call this unnatural."



At that point, the severity and the proposed solution of the problem are evident, and it's up to him/her to do what he/she wants.


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## Loob

Thanks, Albatrosspro.  I take from your last post the idea that you wouldn't advise mionguyen to use this construction, unless, perhaps, he's writing poetry.

I believe, then, that you and I - and indeed most posters in this thread - are in agreement.


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## Albatrosspro

To me, it's perfectly grammatical, though I can see that it's uncommon. From there, you have to consider context, and learn the history of such usage; and then the general point of advising/correcting someone when the only fault is that they have not phrased things in the _most_ common way continues to trouble me...

I'm not trying to split hairs with you, but on the particular question of what I would advise mionguyen to do, I must say that I myself don't have enough information and my mind isn't made up.


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## Loob

Oh, OK.

(I'm clear in my own mind that I would advise mionguyen against using "It heavily rains"/"It doesn't heavily rain".)


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## bennymix

It seems that most posters, with one diomedean exception, have heavily condemned the sentence proposed in the OP.
My vote as to usage is 'uncommon' and 'not recommended.'   Because of the flexibility of adverb placement and the
absence of context, one cannot readily say that the sentence is defective in grammar or syntax per se.

As to the big question of placement of adverbs of manner, I don't see a specific rule; in descriptive terms, they usually go after the verb.    Some common one go routinely before.
I suspect each adverb has its own pattern, but deviances happen and cannot always be said to be defects in the sentence.


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## Loob

bennymix said:


> ...My vote as to usage is 'uncommon' and 'not recommended.' ...


I'd go with that, benny!


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## perpend

I'm glad I'm not the only other American (besides Albatross) who couldn't consider the construction wrong/flawed/incorrect.  Thanks for commenting, benny.

benny makes some good comments about adverbs of manner.

For me, I'd very much agree with what Albatross stated.
_"unusual and less common, though grammatical; perhaps poetical. For an American to say this in speech, I'd think it was slightly odd but not very much so. For that reason, I would have to get pretty far down the list of grievances before I was ready to call this unnatural." _


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## Loob

OK, perp


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## Albatrosspro

Thanks benny, good thoughts. I regret that we couldn't give a better explanation for those who might follow. I do have some lingering thoughts and questions for research; just in case anyone has any appetite left, what about this as one possible reason for choosing this word order?

"It snows in the winter, it's hot in the summer. For some reason, though, it doesn't heavily rain." Emphasis thus on _rain_, not on heavily. I tried to run through some other cases to see if this is possible for any old adverb, and I don't think so. ("She hard studies" would never work.) From there, the door opens to other, implied circumstances of contrast or opposition...


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