adjective -> adverb

[davver]

What is the adverb for the adjective 'sickly'?

[smorodina]

It's either sickly or sicklily - although I'm inclined to think that few would use the latter.

[Quizmonster]

It's hard to see where, nowadays, one would need an adverbial form for the word. Shakespeare has Macbeth say: "...us, who wear our health but sickly..." He uses the word as a verb-form, too "...sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."

At a guess, I'd say that neither 'sickly' nor 'sicklily' has been used as an adverb for over a century! I know it's more long-winded, but people today would tend to say "in a sickly manner" or some such phrase if they had to express the thought.

[Quizmonster]

Some time later...I see the reason for your question now, Davver! It was your own use of the phrase 'that sounds so sicklily sentimental' elsewhere on the site. Obviously, it didn't sound right to you, did it? You could just as easily have written 'sickly sentimental', as there is no reason why one adjective should not qualify another. Think of 'bitter sweet', for example.

I will obviously now have to retract my claim that no-one has used 'sicklily' for more than a hundred years. I think you should contact the 'Guinness B of R'! Cheers

[davver]

Bang on, Quizmonster! That's what set me wondering. However, an adjective does not qualify another adjective - you need an adverb. The phrase 'bitter sweet' is, I think, actually one word, 'bittersweet', and its purpose is to try to describe a mixed feeling. The 'bitter' is not describing the sweetness, it is describing the noun (which is also described by 'sweet'). Think of a phrase such as "An astonishingly fast runner." 'Astonishingly' is an adverb; the adjective would be 'astonishing'.
However all this doesn't help! I suppose I could have got round it by saying, "that sounds so sickly and sentimental", but that would not have conveyed my meaning exactly as I wished.

[Quizmonster]

I'm afraid you're quite wrong, Davver in your belief that one adjective cannot qualify another. 'Great' is unquestionably an adjective as is 'big'. It would be perfectly acceptable for your granny to ask you - when she arrives for Christmas lunch, say - for "a great big hug", wouldn't it? She doesn't mean a great hug and a big hug...the 'great' qualifies the 'big'. Similarly, "a great big man" does not mean a great man who is also a big one! A geometrical figure might be described as 'many-sided', where both 'many' and 'sided' are adjectives. The same applies if you describe someone as "the third-oldest child in the family". Consider most popular...worst planned...furthest travelled...red hot...need I go on?

The fact remains that you would have been perfectly correct grammatically had you said merely 'sickly sentimental'. Cheers

[davver]

This did occur to me, but you'll see that these 'adjectives' are all quantifiers - adjectives that decree the extent of something: most popular...worst planned... great big... etc. As 'sickly' is not a quantifier, it cannot be applied to another adjective. Unless, of course, the adverbial form of 'sickly' is, in fact, 'sickly'!

[Quizmonster]

Fair enough, D, so how about this? He spoke friendlily...I wandered lonelily...they retreated cowardlily. There are dozens of adjectives ending in 'ly' which do not in current usage create an adverbial form by adding another 'ly'.

Some such forms did exist, such as your suggested 'sicklily', but they have long been effectively obsolete. If it's any comfort to you, 'earlily', for instance, seems to have disappeared from everyday use even before 'sicklily' did.

Perhaps hyphenation is the solution you seek? Saying, for example, that a film has "a sickly, sweet ending" is not quite the same thing as saying it has "a sickly-sweet ending". In the former, both adjectives independently qualify 'ending', but - and this is what I was really trying to get at earlier - in the second, the 'sickly' has now been made to qualify - for want of a better word - 'sweet' rather than 'ending'. (Well, that's how I see it anyway!)

So, how about 'sickly-sentimental'? This may be what you meant when you said the non-hyphenated version didn't quite seem to say what you wanted to say. I can assure you it is a perfectly acceptable option, whatever part of speech you decide to call it.

The thing is, though, that the Americans are currently throwing hyphens away wholesale, even when they're clearly worth keeping. What they do today, we tend to do 'tomorrow', so what price my hyphen-suggestion then? Cheers

PS...The OED and Chambers Dictionary both still list 'sicklily' as an adverb form. It's worth mentioning, however, that the most recent entry for the word in the OED dates from the 1870s! Maybe 'sicklily-sentimental' is what you're after.

[davver]

God knows! I shall ask my English language tutor when I get back to university, and let you know.

[davver]

Of course! 'Sickeningly' would fit perfectly!