I was reading the latests Caps news (talk about bad) and saw a quote from GM George McPhee about defenseman Nolan Yonkman, who tore a ligament in his knee and is now probably out for the season.
"You feel badly for the player because he looks like with the right development he's got a good chance to play at this level," McPhee said.
I'm not picking on McPhee, because I keep seeing the phrase feel badly used by someone expressing sorrow, sympathy, or guilt. Every time I do, I think "No, you don't, you feel bad. Badly is an adverb!"
I am not the perfect grammarian, but I remember that much from junior high. I-subject. Feel-linking verb. Bad-adjective describing subject. Badly-adverb modifying verb. Unless you mean that you aren't good at feeling, the correct word there is bad.
Right?
Well, maybe not. It looks like feel badly has some advocates, or at least those who allow for it, including the American Heritage Book of English Usage and The Columbia Guide to Standard American English.
So feel badly is good.
That makes me feel bad.
Posted by Nic at October 29, 2003 01:02 PM | TrackBack