A Word, Please: Hypercorrection isn’t all well and good

Hypercorrection is the term language buffs use when people try so hard to avoid mistakes that they end up making mistakes.

It happens when people use “between you and I” in the belief that “between you and me” is wrong, when in fact “between you and me” is the grammatical form. It happens when people say “I feel badly” instead of “I feel bad,” which is the grammatical form because copular verbs like “feel” take adjectives, not adverbs, as their complements.

But the most interesting examples of hypercorrection occur in gray areas, where the too-cautious choices aren’t necessarily wrong but aren’t quite right, either. Take, for example, this snippet I caught in a National Public Radio report about preparing for a hurricane: “It doesn’t come cheaply.”

A few weeks later, I heard on “Marketplace,” another public radio show, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government expressing skepticism that the refugee crisis in the Middle East could “turn out neatly.”

I hear stuff like this a lot. “The project turned out well.” “It came out beautifully.” When someone is speaking with caution, worried how they might sound to others, they default to the idea that adverbs like “well” and “beautifully” are better than adjectives like “good” and “beautiful.”

“The project turned out good” and “It came out beautiful” are considered casualisms at best and grammar errors at worst.

But if you think the examples above call for adverbs, consider this: Do you slice the meat thin or do you slice it thinly?

This example sheds light on the flawed thinking that leads to “turn out well” and “come cheaply.” The user is thinking: The word after my verb should be an adverb because adverbs, not adjectives, describe verbs.

But who said we’re actually describing the action? Who said that a word that comes after a verb can’t describe a noun elsewhere in the sentence?

After “slice the meat,” you certainly could use an adverb. “Slice the meat carefully” and “Slice the meat quickly” describe the verb. They tell the manner in which the action should be performed.

But when you’re engaged in the act of slicing, can you really perform that action thinly? Does that really describe the manner in which you’re moving the knife through the roast? I suppose you could turn sideways and suck in your tummy as you’re slicing. But, really, it’s obvious that the meat, a noun, is what’s thin.

To ask whether a crisis could “turn out neatly” isn’t quite as straightforward. It seems to me that you’re modifying the noun, “crisis,” and that you therefore would use the adjective form, “neat.” But could you argue that your real intent was to describe the action of “turning out”? Depending on what you mean, “neatly” or “neat” could be correct in this example.

The same is true for “Hurricane preparation doesn’t come cheaply.” But this one isn’t equivocal to me: I would always opt for “cheap” here because my emphasis would be on the noun, preparation, instead of the action, to come out. But is it possible that something could come out in a cheap manner? Perhaps.

The trick here is to not get hung up on the order of words. Instead, focus on meaning — whether you’re describing the action or a thing.

Perhaps the best illustration comes by comparing “Brad acts good” with “Brad acts well.” When you use the adjective, good, you show that you’re modifying the noun, Brad. Brad is acting as though he himself is good. But when you use the adverb, “well,” you’re describing the verb, “act.” That’s why “Brad acts well” makes perfect sense if Brad is a thespian.

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JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.