How + Adjective

Introduction

There is a very common sentence structure used by candidates in examinations that I find quite frustrating: the adverb “how” followed by an adjective.

Consider the following extract from JK Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”:

Harry snapped the earmuffs over his ears. They shut out sound completely.

Professor Sprout put a pink fluffy pair over her own ears, rolled up the sleeves of her robes, grasped one of the tufty plants, and pulled hard.

Harry let out a gasp of surprise that no one could hear.

Instead of roots, a small, muddy and extremely ugly baby popped out of the earth. The leaves were growing right out of his head. He had pale green, mottled skin, and was clearly bawling at the top of his lungs.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

An interpretation would typically be phrased:

The way the mandrake “was clearly bawling at the top of his lungs” shows how loud it was crying.

There is nothing particularly wrong with this response. However, a more precise statement should be used instead:

The way the mandrake “was clearly bawling at the top of his lungs” tells the reader that it was crying loudly.

This is a much more confident interpretation.

Another example:

When “Harry let out a gasp of surprise that no one could hear”, it tells the reader how shocked he was to see the mandrake.

This should be phrased:When “Harry let out a gasp of surprise that no one could hear”, it tells shows that he was shocked by the mandrake’s appearance.