Feel Bad or Feel Badly

I’ve had a discussion with my physician, who also writes a weekly column in the local newspaper, concerning his statement that because he has the flu he “feels badly.” We’ve been discussing this via email. I learned in grammar school that if you are referring to your health, the adjective “bad” is correct and “badly” is correct if his sense of touch is impaired. He replied that he learned just the opposite in grammar school.

My logic is that when you are referring to your health, you are referring to your condition which requires an adjective, not an adverb. I think the confusion relates to the word “well,” which has many meanings, but one meaning is good health. Hence, “I feel well,” means you are in good health. I think that meaning is confused with “well” that is the adverb of the adjective “good.” Because “I feel well” is correct grammar, people believe “I feel badly” is correspondingly also correct. But you can also say “I feel good,” with the same meaning. And you can also feel good about certain things.

Many language mavens are on this board so I know I will get some well :slight_smile: educated comments here.

I agree with everything you said, but some of the online dictionaries I consulted say that one of the meanings of the word “badly” is an adjective meaning “ill” (e.g. Badly - definition of badly by The Free Dictionary, Badly Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com), as is “poorly.”

It can be as in the phrase “He’s doing badly.” But traditionally it’s “feel bad” when sick and “feel badly” if you have gloves on so you can’t feel.

Thanks for the link. I guess that “badly” is OK the way my doc used it. I’ll have to throw in the towel.

In “he feels bad”, bad is an adjective, which applies to “he”.

In “he feels badly”, badly is an adverb, which applies to “feels”.

So in the first case the guy in question is under the weather or evil or smelly or some other meaning of “bad”, while in the second case the job of feeling is performed unsatisfactorily.

Basic grammar: adjectives modify nouns and adverbs modify verbs. Bad is an adjective and badly is an adverb. So if you say “I feel bad” then bad is referring to “I” and if you say “I feel badly” then badly is referring to “feel”.

I’m sure there are sources that will say you can use badly to call yourself ill. But it’s an indication that the wrong usage has become common enough for people to accept it.

I feel that you are correct, and I feel bad about that.

Check out this blog post (and the comments) for a discussion of “the adjectival status of badly and poorly”: Separated by a Common Language: badly and poorly

Thanks. That link supports my analogy with “well.”

Harry: Umm, clearly I’m interrupting. I feel badly. Let me… What are you drinking?
Harmony: Bad.
Harry: Bad? Sorry… feel…?
Harmony: You feel bad.
Harry: Bad?
Harmony: Badly is an adverb. So to say you feel badly would be saying that the mechanism which allows you to feel is broken.

[RIGHT]-- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang[/RIGHT]

Stranger

The correct answer is “Both are used, and native speakers understand both, so both are correct.” Anything else is a gross misunderstanding of language.

Bingo. We have a winner.

I’m wondering how recently this entry has occurred. If enough people say “badly,” which used to be incorrect, it will get listed as an alternate. I suspect your doctor was saying “badly” even before it was legitimized.

Insert standard rant re:
Descriptive vs. Prescriptive dictionaries.

Descriptive dictionaries will list any damned thing that enough idiots say; Prescriptive tell the reader what the word ACTUALLY means, by consensus of those persons regarded as experts on the language.

Urban Dictionary is the ultimate in Descriptive - there are terms listed which nobody else in the world will touch (sex and drugs and race and religion).

If you are a newcomer to the English-speaking world, you will do well to have one of each type.
When someone says “Screw you”, the Descriptive (“vulgar: copulate”) will do you well. The Prescriptive one will tell you about threaded fasteners, the motion used to insert or remove threaded fasteners, and ship’s propellers. Which are the uses you should use when writing a serious document.

Yes, Mother was an English Teacher (from Hell).

IOW: It’s I feel bad period.

The blogger’s suspicion is born out by a corpus search of American spoken English. After a quick look at COCA, I’m seeing that:

  1. Feel bad and feel badly are both essentially idioms, so one isn’t going to come to any useful understanding of the two by mindlessly resorting to the labels of the parts of speech (adverb and adjective). When you do that, you are simplistically letting form dictate over function, and won’t get anywhere.

  2. While the two are very similar, they are not semantically identical. Feel badly is used more to express feeling regretful (about something), or sympathetic (toward someone). Feel bad tends to express guilt about what oneself has done or caused.

The problem here (from the OP’s perspective) is that feel bad ALSO means to feel (physically) sick. So what the doctor is doing (and what apparently quite a few American English speakers do) is generalizing that to feel badly, as well, (perhaps because of the similar expression feel poorly).

What about [Jed Clampett voice] I’m feelin’ poorly? :dubious:

It’s a little more complicated than that. While it’s true that any native English speaker will understand “I feel badly,” it’s not true that any native English speaker will say it. It sounds “wrong” to some people, and not just because they’re being prescriptive schoolmarms. Of those who do say it, some do it because they learned it that way, but I’d guess that some others say it because they’re hypercorrecting.

Here are some sentences that most native English speakers would understand, yet would still consider wrong:

You am happy.

I didn’t went to the store.

My foots are tired.

Understanding isn’t enough. It has to sound right to a native speaker to be correct in the speaker’s language. “I feel badly” sounds right to some native English speakers and wrong to some others. It may be a matter of dialect, in which case it would be right in some dialects and wrong in others.

If it were truly an adverb/adjective thing, then I get to answer “How are you?” with “I’m good.” Agreed?:smiley:

I’ll answer this seriously, even though you’re not really being serious.

The word “well” can be used as either an adverb or an adjective. As an adjective, it has a number of meanings, including “in good health.” “Good” has a lot of different meanings, including “satisfactory.” “I’m well” and “I’m good” are both grammatically correct, but mean somewhat different things when taken literally.

There’s more to this than literal meaning, though. There’s a kind of polite exchange that happens when two people encounter each other. Usually when you meet an old friend on the street and ask, “How are you?”, you’re not asking for the details of that person’s life. In that setting, “I’m well, and you?” is a kind of formal response. “I’m good, how about you?” is less formal. The level of formality has to do with social convention, not grammar.