It's a question of context. Important is an adjective, importantly an adverb.

"Of all the reasons for war, the most important is...." (important is an adjective modifying reasons)

"Why did we go to war? Most importantly, we went because the President said...." (importantly is an adverb, modifying went)

Note that in the second sentence it would not be unusual to leave out the verb phrase "we went," yet it would still be implied.

Leastways, that's my understanding. But it's been many years since I made my living as an editor.

Cheers,

T

Cheers,

T

Thank you for replying. What do you do now instead of editing?

I usually deal with the "ly" issue when it begins a sentence, for instance:

"But most important,"
or
"Most importantly..."

My question is are those correct (respectively)? And why?

Thanks again!

Gina, as Tom has explained, it depends whether what is 'most important' is a noun or a verb. At the beginning of a sentence, it depends what follows, e.g.

'Most importantly, we should CONSIDER [verb] whether the phrase applies to a noun or to a verb.'

'Most important, in our consideration, is the QUESTION [noun] whether the phrase applies to a noun or to a verb.'

John's explanation is clearer than mine, I think. And also dead on.

These days, I work at Adobe. I'm the program manager for fonts and core technologies.

Cheers,

T

Thomas is also a proud new papa :-)

Thanks everyone! And congratulations, Thomas!

Gina