[alexlearner]

In one of my previous posts, I made up a few sentences with "to lose something severely, which were wrong.

susan53 corrected my mistakes. Many thanks for all of her help with all my posts.

However, I still have a lot of trouble with "to lose money + an adverb" and "to make money + an adverb".

I am going to make up two sentences below.

(1) A lack of computer business skills made him lose money ___ .

(a) haplessly
(b) horrendously
(c) atrociously

(2) His long business experience and excellent marketing strategies helped him make money ___ .

(a) swimmingly
(b) prosperously
(c) effortlessly

I am really struggling to find the right adverbs for losing and making money. Please help me. Thanks a lot.

[susan53]

Can't deal with both of these today (time, sorry) but I'll answer the first and come back to the second another day if no-one else has answered in the meantime.


Let's start with the basic sentence. I'm not sure what you mean by "computer business skills". There are business skills, there are computer skills - but I can't think of any computer skills which are necessary specifically for business but nothing else -?? So I'd just say :

His lack of computer skills made his business lose money....

Now for the adverbs :

a) haplessly : this is very archaic. In the Brown and BNC corpora there are no examples at all of this adverb being used, and only two of the adjective, in both cases pre-modifying a noun. The Cobuild dictionary does not list the adverb at all, and again exemplifies the adjective as premodifying a noun (the hapless victim of a mis-placed murder attempt), saying that it is literary in style. So don't use this adverb at all.

b) horrendously : this is grammatically possible but still sounds a bit odd, and would certainly give the sentence a neutral to informal style. Fine if you're speaking, but the sentence sounds to me as if it's in a written, neutral style. In speaking I'd expect something like :
He had no computer skills at all and the business was losing money horrendously.

c) atrociously : Again, grammatically OK but open to all the objections above. And it doesn't really collocate with loss of money. The only collocation I can find associated to money is : It was atrociously expensive.

So my answer would be

a) Don't use an adverb at all. If you're writing in a neutral to formal style, change the sentence to eg His lack of computer skills caused his business to lose a large amount of money.
or His lack of computer skills resulted in excessive/appalling losses for the business

b) If on the other hand, you are speaking more informally, then what I said above would be possible : He had no computer skills at all and the business was losing money horrendously.. However, there is also a colloquial expression that could be used adverbially : He had no computer skills at all and the business was losing money hand over fist.

[susan53]

Now for the second group :

a) swimmingly : this is very colloquial and would only be used in very informal style, most likely in spoken discourse though a very informal written message to a friend is possible. However, it only collocates with the verb go to form a fixed expression : to go swimmingly = to proceed without problems - eg : We were worried that the preparations for the conference hadn't been thorough enough, but it all went swimmingly. It can't be used with any other verb or in any other expression. It sounds to me slightly old-fashioned though, and rather "upper class" - like something a character in a Scott Fitzgerald novel might say.

b) prosperously : You can't put this together with the expression make money, because it means the same thing. If you make money it means you are prosperous. It would be like saying "He lied untruthfully" There is no other way to lie.

c) effortlessly is OK - but notice that it has a precise meaning : without difficulty. If that's what you want to say, fine. But if you're just trying to say that he made a lot of money, then you need a different expression. Depending on the style of the discourse, I'd suggest :

His long business experience and excellent marketing strategies helped him make a large amount of money. (Neutral)

He was making money hand over fist. (Informal)

Your real problem in both these groups of sentences is that you are trying to "force" an adverb into an expression which wouldn't normally use one. That's why you're having so much difficulty.

[alexlearner]

Sue, thank you very much for putting in so much time and effort to give me detailed explanations about my grammar questions. I really appreciate your help.

[susan53]

No problem Language fascinates me and I thoroughly enjoy doing the research.
Keep the questions coming