Sup, first time Sun readers. You guys have never read a column. I’ve never written one. That puts us on the same page. Welcome.

Now if I can just give you one piece of advice: don’t use adverbs. Specifically, don’t use adverbs to describe an adjective. This isn’t a joke, like that famous speech some dude gave about using soap or whatever the hell he was talking about. I’m being serious. PLEASE DON’T USE ADVERBS (CAPS ARE OKAY THOUGH)!

You’re going to spend the next four years of your life writing all sorts of things, and I will tell you right now that adverbs are a bad choice on everything from multiple choice tests to your honors paper on “Magic and Technology in Divinely Comedic Works”. Actually, I would reject your thesis just on the grounds that you used an adverb in the title.

They’re not needed. They’re fluff. Extra space. Kerning errors. Keyboard abortions. They make up a substantial part of the freshman literary 15. And you wouldn’t want to put on any vocabularial weight, would you? Not after all that cramming you did for the SAT. Think of how your friends will look at you when you go home for winter break. I’ll tell you how. It will be a cold experience. You’ll say, “Cornell is ridiculously difficult,” and there will be a silence. You won’t know what’s wrong, and your friends will just say “You’ve changed man. You’ve changed.” You want that to happen to you? You want to be embarrassed like that?

But that’s what’s going to happen to you. It’s college, man. Nobody starts out that way. Nobody wants to end up that way. But one day, you’ll be hanging out in your room and your friend will take a rogue hit from the bong and say “this visualizer is hauntingly beautiful”. And it’ll be too late for you then, my freshman friend. You’ll say something like “no dude, it’s jovially up-tempo.” By that point you’re pretty much fucked.

Do you see yet? Do you see what they do? They make everything sound poetic. You know how in elementary school they taught you that saying two negatives in a row makes them cancel out? I am going to teach you, right now, that using adverbs also cancels words out. When you say something is “hilariously scary,” you may think that you’ve just expressed some lost feeling, inexpressible by wordsmiths prior to you without the use of not one, but two describing words. No. What you have actually said is nothing. You have made me think of one thing, followed it up with a contradictory thing (excellent one-two punch to my brain, asshole), and then, likely, used those words to describe a noun that has never been described by those words before. Maybe your feelings have hints of other feelings in them. Maybe you can feel obscurely sad. I can’t. I haven’t felt obscurely sad in so long that I don’t remember what it feels like. Please don’t make up emotions. That makes me sad.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here isn’t really about adverbs, a particular set of adverbs to boot. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that you should think about things before you say and write them. Now, college is a time of experimentation. It’s a great opportunity to change who you are and how people perceive you. Used to addressing someone with “dude?” Now you can say “bro,” or “chief.” Mix it up a little bit. Take chances. Were you one of those kids in high school who always used double quotes? Man, you’re in college now! Try single quotes. Maybe they fit your personality better. Try saying new things that you would have never even dreamed of saying a month ago. Things that don’t mean anything. Things that used to mean other things. Things like “word” (“I agree, but in a cool way”). Things like “oh, word?” (“Really?”). Things like “Really?” (“Dude, what you just said was totally not cool. I definitely don’t agree).

Start saying things like, “I’m addicted to…” When you’re in college, you can get addicted to anything: to facebook, to music, to frisbee. I’ve never heard anyone here say “I am addicted to heroin. I do not have the strength to quit. I will die. Even though I know I will die, I am never happier than when I shoot up.” Maybe I’m going to all the wrong support groups, but I have never heard anyone say that. I have, however, heard plenty of people say they’re addicted to their telephones. Often during phone calls. Deliciously long phone calls. What, it’s not enough for you to say “I really, really like heroin?” You really have to go and say you’re addicted to it? C’mon, let’s reserve that word for the real victims of a physiological dependence. Another lesson to take away from this: don’t do drugs.

Here at college, you will have the power to try all these things: drugs, adverbs, sarcasm. Just remember that with great power comes great responsibility. It’s okay for you to try them here, but do you really want to be a sarcastic junkie poet when you’re 27?

Anyway, that’s what really grinds my gears this week. Those adjective modifiers really got to me. Stay the hell away from them and your time here will be surprisingly delightful.

Yevgeniy Feldman is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at ef63@cornell.edu. What Really Grinds My Gears will appear alternate Mondays this semester.