[alexlearner]

oral means (1) spoken and (2) involving the mouth.

I have trouble using it as an adverb. I want to make a few sentences with it.

(1) The doctor gave her patient medicine orally.

(2) He gave his employer his personal information orally.

(3) It's risky to reveal your credit card number to sellers orally, from whom you never bought anything.

Am I using the adverb correctly? Thanks a lot.

[susan53]

a) Notice there are two slightly different meanings. One is the medical sense - ie drugs to be swallowed rather than injected wtc. This is the meaning in your first sentence and is fine.

b) The other meaning is to say something rather than to write it down. With this meaning it's a word which tends to be used only when you really want to emphasise that the information was spoken rather than written. Eg: His employer had the wrong phone number for him. He had given it to her orally at the interview and she must have written it down incorrectly.

If it didn't make any difference how the information was given, you's just leave it out : He gave his employer his personal information at the interview.

Similarly, as it would be equally risky to give your credit card number to anyone either in speech or in writing : It's risky to give your credit card number to sellers if you've never bought anything from them before.

So - nothing wrong with the sentences grammatically, but as always you have to think about the context.