I thought today's writers were less slavishly devoted to Strunk and White?

They're not the Last Word, but they're still upheld as an elegant exemplar. It is a kind of prose which will still get you published in the New Yorker (which despite its reputation for WASP-y, minimalist fiction did publish Flannery O'Connor and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" among other things).

I'd argue that Bradbury is sparing with adjectives and downright frugal with adverbs. For example:

For some, autumn comes early, stays late, through life … with no winter, spring or revivifying summer. For these beings, fall is the only normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No, the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks through their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles—breaks. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.

its often a gesture on the writer's part that they're afraid the audience won't get it.

I think perhaps you don't need to explain that to *this* audience.

I think perhaps you don't need to explain that to *this* audience.

This.

I'm only repeating Mr. King's complaint. And since this audience is reluctant to part with their adverbs it did seem worth saying.

And since this audience is reluctant to part with their adverbs it did seem worth saying.

You said you weren't advocating abolishing them completely, like your poetry teacher. And most of us -- I thought -- said that we know overuse of them is lazy and bad writing, but that we're okay with using them occasionally. It's a non-argument.

I'm only repeating Mr. King's complaint.

Nonsense. You weren't *only* repeating his complaint; you prefaced it by asking, I assume not rhetorically:

Do people not get why there's an objection to reliance on adverbs?

And then spelling it out for your audience (via Mr. King), who already got it.

And since this audience is reluctant to part with their adverbs

Different people like different shit.

And most of us -- I thought -- said that we know overuse of them is lazy and bad writing, but that we're okay with using them occasionally. It's a non-argument.

That wasn't my sense of it at all. Jilli disagreed directly. As did Connie. Tep's objection was more than a minor demurrer. Your stance was more mediated but that wasn't the tenor of it.

Jilli certainly didn't say she wanted to use them with abandon. And we were all responding to your teacher's opinion no one should ever use them.

I like adverbs sometimes. And that's all I have left to say on this, I think. Except what Tep said:

Different people like different shit.

Of all my faults, I think that liking adverbs is the one I am perhaps least ashamed of.

Seriously, what the hell? Who cares if someone likes adverbs?