I have managed quarter of a century as a journalist without hearing the phrase “fronted adverbial”. But now I am a parent of a primary school child, it is imperative I know it, apparently.

@adders I'm not keen on them and tend to edit them out.

@jeremycherfas Expunged fronted adverbials?

@adders @jeremycherfas But what does it mean?

@artkavanagh @adders @jeremycherfas I'm sure they make these things up, there was never any talk of them when I was at school ( a long, long time ago). Had to look them up.

@adders Replaced, literally.

@artkavanagh Typing on my computer, I can tell you.

@adders

@colinwalker @adders @jeremycherfas Predictably, it's Gove's fault. And the whole grammar curriculum is controversial, if you read that article.

As to its age, I agree it's new. My 1990 edition of the Collins dictionary only lists “adverbial" as the adjectival form of “adverb."

Honestly, they’d be better off just reading a lot.

@devilgate Well, my eldest has no problem on that score, at least. We have to stop her reading as she walks down the stairs…

@jeremycherfas @adders So it’s simply putting the adverbial clause at the start of the sentence. They need a name for that?

@artkavanagh Of course they do. How else you going to assess whether someone has mastered "it" if you don't know what to call it?

@jeremycherfas Before I even knew what they were called (or that they were called anything at all), I knew I was overusing them.