What we talk about when we talk about (word) copulation

Some people have some strange, wrong ideas, and it's all because their high school teachers didn't tell them about copulation. Or resultatives or substantives.

What they do remember from high school is that if something modifies a verb, it has to be an adverb, and that if a verb takes an object, it has to be a noun. Unfortunately for them, because they don't know about those three grammatical twists I just mentioned — copulation, resultatives, and substantives — they get into trouble.

Well, better late than never. Here are some important facts of grammar.

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Copulation

I'm not talking about sex here. In grammar, copulation is what happens when a verb is a copula — which means it joins (couples) the subject to an entity or quality. The verb be can be a copula: I am a cook (equates I with a cook), You are happy (attributes the quality happy to you). This is why in some dialects it gets left out: You crazy, He a fool. It's also why some people mistakenly lower-case it in titles (This is What I am Talking About): it doesn't seem like an important word or a full verb.

But there are other verbs that can be copulas as well — copular verbs, also called linking verbs. They have more semantic content, but they can still take an adjective as a complement. People who don't know about these verbs sometimes change the adjective to an adverb, thinking that's the rule. But going by the rules, that actually changes the meaning of the verb.

Here are some examples of why you really need to know the facts of copulation.

feel bad: Some people think that you need to use an adverb on feel. But if you avoid the copulation and feel badly, its proper sense is that you do a lousy job of feeling — which may affect your future chances of that other kind of copulation. If you just have a bad feeling, you feel bad. Similarly, you feel well if you do a good job of feeling, or if you feel healthy (the adjectival version of well). If your general sensation and outlook are good, you feel good.

lie flat: If you are lying down and you are flat, you are lying flat. If you lie flatly, that means you are engaging in the act of lying and you are doing so in a flat manner. This may seem to mean the same thing, but flatly is really normally used only figuratively — you can say something flatly, for instance. So lie flatly can mean you are telling a lie in a flat manner.

taste sweet: Most of us don't have a problem with this. If something has a taste and that taste is sweet, then it tastes sweet — the copular form refers to the thing that has the taste. Change it to the non-copular and add an adverb and you're referring to the person doing the tasting: a person who is being sweet and tasting your cooking is tasting sweetly — or sweetly tasting. Whether the person is also sweet tasting is for you to find out...or not.

appear wrong: If something appears to be wrong, it appears wrong. If it shouldn't even be appearing, then it appears wrongly. In a similar vein, if you want to appear smartly, then show up in a smart manner; if you want to appear smart, make sure you know your copulas.

wax poetic: This wax is not the wax on, wax off sense; it's the waxing and waning sense. It means "grow" or "become" — both of which can also be copular. So if you wax poetic, you become poetic. If, on the other hand, you wax poetically, it means you apply wax while reciting a sonnet or something like that.

Other verbs that can be copular include (but are not limited to) look, keep, remain, smell, turn, and prove. Some of them can take a noun object as a copula too: If you persist in remaining ignorant of this, you will prove a fool.

Resultatives

A resultative is a construction where the complement of a verb is (or includes) an adjective describing the result of the action. For example, if you drink the bar dry or eat yourself sick, you're using a resultative. There are plenty of these in English. Resultative verbs can also be modified by adverbs, but those describe the way the action is done, not the result. Here are three more examples you can use to practice yourself smart on this.

hammer flat: You don't hammer something flatly, unless you want to extend the figurative sense of flatly seen in stated flatly to hammer. You hammer it so it becomes flat — you hammer it flat.

pack tight: People can pack in tightly if you can picture the action of packing being done in a tight manner. But people can definitely pack in tight, because tight is the result of their packing. You can also pack clothes flat — see above about packing them flatly. And people crowd in close when they crowd in to be close to something (a performer, for instance). If they crowd closely, they may just be getting close to each other, which is usual when crowding.

freeze solid: It's not impossible for things to be done solidly. But if you freeze something so that it becomes solid, you have frozen it solid. Meanwhile, if you drone on to people about how you think it should be frozen solidly, you will probably have bored them stiff — not necessarily stiffly.

Substantives

A substantive is an adjective used as a noun. It implies a noun (She treated the sick means she treated the sick people) or it can stand for the abstract essence of the quality or a particular instance of it (It's not that I don't like green; I just don't like the green in your bathroom). These are often preceded by a or the, but sometimes they're not, and some people can be quite annoyed by what they think are adjectives that should be adverbs. Here are three recent cases.

Eat fresh: This slogan for Subway isn't an error for eat freshly; they aren't suggesting you do the act of eating in a fresh manner (how would that be, exactly?). They want you to eat what is fresh. If they said eat the fresh, no one would say it should be eat the freshly, though some might want eat the freshness. But they mean not eat the fresh things but eat the essence (or quality) of fresh. This kind of substantive seems a bit too fresh for some people.

Click clever, click safe: This is the slogan for a campaign by the British government. Yes, of course they want children to click safely, but they also want them to click safe things. Do they want them to click cleverly? I don't know about you, but I think kids who surf the web too cleverly may get around their parents' filters so they can click some unsafe things too... The UK government may just want them to click what is clever. Which I think they are hoping includes their website.

Think different: Apple told us this years ago. Of course you can think differently about things — for example, about grammar. But think can also take a noun object — you can think profits, think losses, think results — as well as a substantive object: think green, not think greenly.

So remember: when you think grammar, think copulas, resultatives, and substantives. It will help you look good and knock 'em flat.