Tell me more ×
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote -4 down vote favorite

I am not sure about whether to use "match manual" or "match manually". I am not native but I know that the latter is grammatically correct as the word "manual" has to be used as an adverb in this case. However, "match manual" still sounds very correct to me. Is this a special case?

share|improve this question
1  
Words in isolation like this mean nothing, so questions based on them are equally vacuous. Please provide a sentence. Look at a grammar manual first & see what it says. – Bill Franke Feb 21 at 9:10
I believe this question would be a better fit at English Language Learners. – SF. Feb 21 at 9:12

closed as not a real question by Bill Franke, RegDwighт♦ Feb 21 at 10:08

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

up vote -1 down vote

It is correct to say like manual collection, manual transmission etc , but it is not correct to say like match manual. This is because collection, transmission etc are nouns, but 'match' is a verb, so it is perfect to say like match manually. i.e, with noun you should use 'manual' and with verb you should use 'manually'.

share|improve this answer
Ok, thanks a lot. That makes sense! – matthias Feb 21 at 9:29
Without further context from the OP, this is plain wrong. Manual could be a noun. And match, too, for that matter. Making match manual perfectly grammatical. – RegDwighт♦ Feb 21 at 10:08
Well, I used this phrase in a figure so it is not a sentence. It is just the two words and should describe in the figure that a "user" has to match some names or words by hand or manually. Hope that makes it a bit clearer. So in that context, could I use "Match manual" then? – matthias Feb 21 at 11:19
Use 'Match Manually' – Sarika.R Feb 21 at 11:27

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.