“Breathe easily,” I said to the sign erected by an institution that cared not for the adverb. But the battle was lost 48 years ago in the ParticipACTION campaign which shamed us all into getting fit by equating the health of a 60-year-old Swede with a 30-year-old Canadian. And the slogan for this campaign?
Breathe Easier
It rankled us at the time. I was horrified. Here was I trying to teach grammar and the Federal Government was promoting this error. Was it not possible to use the comparative form of the adverb? Didn’t the government care about the grammatical health of the nation! “Breathe more easily,” they might have said, and given comfort to beleaguered adverbs everywhere, already on the endangered parts-of-speech list.
Now the adverb is threatened more than ever before. Act responsible! Eat healthy! Shine brighter! Book easier, travel happier! But some of us refuse to give up. My friend Paul has a driving manual on his desk, entitled, “Drive Smart”, on the cover of which he has inked in the “ly”.
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