Manage That Gavel FairLY but firmLY!

Those of you who are registered, please remember to vote if your primaries are tomorrow. I hope you are using some of your time today to remember those who have died for our country.

My local newspaper carried an article about the Lieutenant Governor's race in Alabama. One of the candidates was quoted as saying, "I will manage the gavel fair but firmly."

This quotation offers a good opportunity to remind my readers to be careful with parallel structure. If you take one adjective (FIRM) and add an LY to it to create an adverb, then it is necessary to do the same thing with the other adjective. This sentence should be stated as follows:

I will manage the gavel fairly but firmly.