“John quickly pulled out his gun, shakily aimed it at Joe, and angrily shot him dead.” There’s one way you might write a line of fiction (or, if you’re a member of my immediate family, memoir). Here’s ...

I am gladly, fully, openly in support of adverbs. Despite our democratic ideals, schoolchildren throughout America learn that not all words are created equal: Nouns and verbs make sense of the world, ...