I've been asked to 'splain youse all about the word badly. It is an adverb. You don't really need to know that, except that it will help you stop using it with the verb feel, which is wrong! wrong! wrong! You don't feel happily or sadly or gladly, do you? Of course not! So you don't feel badly either. You feel happy. Or sad. Or glad. Or bad. The verb feel takes an adjective, not an adverb. I feel happy, I feel bad. I have had it up to here (hand at chin level) with people telling me how badly they feel about something. Friends, unless you have nerve damage in your fingertips, you feel bad, not badly.
It's possible that the confusion comes from the word well, which can be an adverb (meaning in a good/skillful way, as in, "I don't sing well." ) or an adjective (meaning healthy, as in "I don't feel well."). But that doesn't mean that you can do the same with bad and badly. So don't. Please.
Do people actually say "I feel badly?" I don't think I've ever encountered that. Or I mentally edited it out.
I wonder what else I'm editing out!
Posted by: James | January 12, 2007 at 01:46 AM
What helps is that feel is a state of being verb not and action verb. Action verbs have adverbs to describe them and state of being verbs have adjectives because the modifiers is pointing back to the subject. You wouldn't say "I am badly" either. On the other hand, maybe some people think feeling is an action like jumping or swimming. :-)
Posted by: Susan | January 12, 2007 at 09:51 AM
Oops...I meant to say "What helps to keep it straight is remembering that." I should preview my comments!
Posted by: Susan | January 12, 2007 at 09:53 AM
Surprisingly there are a couple riffs on "bad" and "badly" in the movie Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang...which is an excellent, underrated movie.
Posted by: di | January 12, 2007 at 10:05 AM
Over here in the land of *proper* English (I keed!) a lot of people use the word "badly" incorrectly too, for example:
"I need to get my hair cut badly."
Why? Do you like sporting a bad haircut?
Repeat after me,
"I badly need to get my hair cut."
Posted by: Daisy | January 12, 2007 at 12:03 PM
"Friends, unless you have nerve damage in your fingertips, you feel bad, not badly."
hahaha. I hope you don't run across someone with nerve damage in their fingertips after they say, "I feel badly." you might end up correcting them, which would make for an extremely awkward moment.
Posted by: jerd | January 13, 2007 at 06:02 AM