I recently read a book blurb by a New York Times columnist in which he used the phrase “People who feel passionately about…”. It seemed I’d heard this odd phrasing before, and sure enough, the phrase “feel passionately” turns up 28,200 hits on Google.
Obviously, one can be passionate or feel passionate about things. In that case, the person doing the feeling is passionate. But when you add the “-ly” ending, you make it an adverb, meaning the feeling itself is being done with passion. Since “passionately” modifies “to feel”, the sentence should still make sense if the modifier is omitted. But it doesn’t: “I feel about the homeless” - silly. My conclusion is that people who say they feel passionately about something are fatuous dinks.
Finally, it is almost meaningless to simply say that one feels passionate about something. Is the person passionately for or passionately against the subject? It doesn’t seem to matter any more - the strength of the feeling is what is emphasized. Whether this says something about modern discourse, blah blah blah, I will leave to others.
While I think the first part of your rant is correct (even if a little hyperbolic–it’s an easy error to make for folks that don’t completely understand linking verbs), I disagree here, for two reasons.
First, sometimes knowing that someone cares about an issue tells me which side they’re on. Tell me that you feel passionate about women’s rights, and it’s a good bet that you’re not Phyllis Schlafly. NOt that she’s not passionate on the subject, but she’s very unlikely to use that phrase. And very few people who feel passionate about the issue of rising crime support rising crime.
Second, it can be a lead-in. “Frankie feels passionate about the issue of abortion. Every day, he takes his homemade sheep-fetus puppet down to the Women’s Health Clinic and shouts imprecations at pregnant women in a high-pitched lamb’s voice.” Nothing wrong with that at all.
I stand by it. I wish more prolife-protestors used sheep-fetus puppets.
[Hijack: as part of a college project, we did video interviews with the protestors outside an abortion clinic. One woman, who had the world’s bluest gums and was thereby very difficult to pay attention to, finally got my attention when she said, “I just have one more thing to say,” and fished a tiny plastic fetus doll out of her pocket to brandish at the camera. She then tossed it over her shoulder onto the sidewalk and, without referring to it again, continued her rant against abortion. It was all I could do to keep from falling down laughing.]
Disagree. I think “feel” can be more-or-less synonymous with “care”, as in “I feel for you”. And I assume that you can care passionately about something.
Finagle’s right. In this case, “feel” is considered a linking verb and so requires an adjective. Any other “sense” verbs work the same. You don’t “smell terribly,” you smell terrible. You don’t “look sadly,” you look sad.
“Hear,” actually, might be different. You don’t “hear poor,” you hear poorly.
I think the problem is more in the use of “about” instead of “for”
I feel (pationately) about the homeless.
I feel (pationately) for the homeless.
The first seems wrong in both forms, whilst the second is correct in both forms.
Consider what I feel meticulously about the homeless would mean.
It’s not the same case – “sound” is. This sounds terrible. (You’re mentioning verbs meaning “to impact the named sense”; to smell bad = to impact the sense of smell as being bad. “sound” is the analogy. Actually, these verbs aren’t analogous to “feel,” unless you mean as in “this wall feels hot”; but “feel” meaning “to experience the emotion of being” does work in the same way.)
I stand by it. I wish more prolife-protestors used sheep-fetus puppets.
