Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There ought to me a national campaign to knock that one out. Huge billboards that say I FEEL BAD. (Hey, wasn't there a song like that?)
I really hate to hear someone say, "I feel badly." You mean your sense of touch is impaired? Some people see badly or they hear badly but most people don't feel badly=have a poor sense of touch. Yet they say they do and they don't mean it because they can't speak PROPER ENGLISH!
Yet if WE say it correctly, they thing we're wrong. I feel bad that they can't talk.
In my opinion you are giving the word feeling a very narrow interpretation. I'm agreeing with FOD on this one.
All I'm doing is applying what I learned in school. We were taught that feel is an intransitive linking verb. So is smell. There was a whole list.
Feel can also be an active verb, of course, but then I would think you'd have an object of the verb. I feel the pain.
If there is an odor coming from something, we don't say it smells badly. We say it smells bad. That's because smell is one of those intransitive linking verbs. My dog smells BAD today; he needs a bath. That dog smells badly; he would not be a good bloodhound.
Let me look this up like you did--7th grade was a VERY VERY VERY long time ago.
Often I hear the word "badly" used incorrectly. For example, "I feel badly for him because he didn't make the cut". Most grammarians believe that this statement is incorrect. In this case bad is an adjective that we use with the linking verbs: feel, is, seems, looks, or appears.
To feel badly implies that your sense of touch is not right. When you are referring to a sense of touch, then badly is used as an adverb describing the verb to feel or touch.
The correct way to say the sentence is, "I feel bad for him because he didn't make the cut".
Examples
I feel bad that I wasn't able to make the concert.
The teacher felt bad that her student wasn't able to pass the exam.
She burned her hands taking the pie out of the oven, and thus felt badly and couldn't distinguish between soft and rough.
He damaged the nerve endings in an accident, and now feels badly. [He probably also feels (emotionally) bad.]
There are a lot more examples. Somewhere is the list of linking verbs that we were supposed to have memorized so long ago. Anyway, that's the logic behind this usage.
Admittedly, there does seem to be a growing apathy toward this type of verb and maybe in a few years it won't even matter. It's just that to those of us who had it drummed into us, well, it makes our heads feel BAD.
Thank you! The number of people who argue with this rule of grammar is astounding. I work with a person (with a PhD!) who says, "I feel badly." Admittedly, "I feel bad" sounds wrong to some people.
"I feel bad" sounds like "I feel (as though) I am bad".
If I couldn't make it to the concert, that doesn't make me bad, so why should I feel "bad"?
What about "I feel poorly"? Would you say, "I feel poor"?
I don't know. lol I guess I don't say, "I feel poorly." I say that I don't feel well. I would say, "I feel poor" if I went to the grocery store and didn't have any money.
As for feeling bad, there are lots of meanings for the word "bad." You're using the word "bad" as in "evil." ??
A bad person. But bad can also mean sad or upset and can have other meanings. It's one of those broad, general words. If I feel "bad" for someone I'm saying that I sympathize or feel sad for them. In that case I'm not using the word "bad" to mean evil.
I was just reading somewhere that "I feel bad" doesn't sound fancy enough to some people so I guess they overcompensate by saying "badly."
Probably the same as "John is taking Mary and I to the show." (sorry, cringe, I know.) The speaker doesn't think that the word "me" sounds fancy, they think "I" sounds better even though they wouldn't say "John is taking I to the show."
If I feel "bad" for someone I'm saying that I sympathize or feel sad for them.
LOL - What? You wouldn't say "I feel badly" for someone?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
