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Usenet Posted 18 years ago
Usage

Easy vs easily

Dear newsgroup,
I wonder whether I have to use the adjective or the adverb form in the expression "easily/easy exchangeable" (e.g. "Easily exchangeable catheter system", "Easily exchangeable compressed air cylinder" vs "A tiny and easy exchangeable GC cartridge", "Fast & easy exchangeable punch dies").

Google returned 2700 findings for "easy" and 18800 for "easily" and in my opinion there is no substantial difference in contents in the findings I checked.
Is there really no guideline for use?
Thanks in advance.
Fab
  

Top answer

[nq:1]Dear newsgroup, I wonder whether I have to use the adjective or the adverb form in the expression "easily/easy exchangeable" ... opinion there is no substantial difference in contents in the findings I checked. [/nq] Exchangeable is an adjective and must therefore be qualified by an adverb: "easily exchangeable" is correct, "easy exchangeable" is wrong.

— Usenet

  • [nq:1]Dear newsgroup, I wonder whether I have to use the adjective or the adverb form in the expression "easily/easy exchangeable" ...
  • opinion there is no substantial difference in contents in the findings I checked.
  • [/nq] Exchangeable is an adjective and must therefore be qualified by an adverb: "easily exchangeable" is correct, "easy exchangeable" is wrong.
  • A "fast & easy exchangeable punch die" would be a "fast and easy punch die that is exchangeable" in other words, "fast and easy" would (grammatically) apply to the punch die rather than to "exchangeable".
  • There's no way of telling whether that was the intention or whether it is a mistake and "easily" was intended.
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6 Answers
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[nq:1]Dear newsgroup, I wonder whether I have to use the adjective or the adverb form in the expression "easily/easy exchangeable" ... opinion there is no substantial difference in contents in the findings I checked. Is there really no guideline for use?[/nq]
Exchangeable is an adjective and must therefore be qualified by an adverb: "easily exchangeable" is correct, "easy exchangeable" is wron
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[nq:1]Dear newsgroup, I wonder whether I have to use the adjective or the adverb form in the expression "easily/easy exchangeable" ... substantial difference in contents in the findings I checked. Is there really no guideline for use? Thanks in advance. Fab[/nq]
The "guideline" is that an adjective ("easy") modifies nouns, while an adverb ("easily") modifies verbs, adjectives, and other adverb
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[nq:1]Dear newsgroup, I wonder whether I have to use the adjective or the adverb form in the expression "easily/easy exchangeable" ... cartridge", "Fast & easy exchangeable punch dies"). Google returned 2700 findings for "easy" and 18800 for "easily" and in my[/nq]
Really! I get 98 million hits for easy and 42 million for easily.

But what difference does it make? It depends on how the
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From the explanations in the replies so far I tend to use "easily exchangeable XY" (which has been my first guess, but I became a bit unsure looking at the 2700 returns for "easy exchangeable" and those "easy's" I checked indeed modified an adjective...(which usually requires an adverb, I learned).
Thanks.
Fab
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Ah, sorry for possible confusion.
My newsreader stated "news.arcor-ip.de" as "from" in the first posting. That was a bad configuration and should read "Fab".
Fab
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[nq:2]Really! I get 98 million hits for easy and 42 million for easily.[/nq]
[nq:1]Sorry, I was unclear. The hits refer to "easy exchangeable" vs "easily exchangeable".[/nq]
OK.
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