adjectives - The use of "real" in the following cases





Real quick question




If you listen real close...


Can you swing by real quick...



Sentences like the above two are what I often hear in daily life. If I didn't hear them in the real world, I would probably be more ready to say "If you listen really close..." and "Can you swing by really quick...".


Is real being used as an adjective in this scenario? If so, is the usage of adj.+ adj. a common practice in English language?



Answer



As intensifiers (words that make an adjective stronger), the adjective form of a word (without the ly) is used very often instead of the adverb form in English. As some of the other answers and comments have remarked, these words are indeed adverbs because they modify adjectives.


For example:



bloody stupid (U.K.),
wicked cold (Boston),
dead certain.



If you said bloodily stupid in England, wickedly cold in Boston, or deadly certain pretty much anywhere, it would sound real funny. People say real hot but don't often say real true, because real is an intensifier in the first but not the second. (See Google Ngram).


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