| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
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| feel bad, feel badly |
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| Whatever line you take—to use both, differentiating on some semantic basis or other, to use only feel bad and proscribe feel badly, or to follow some other line—you will find some Standard users who agree with you and others who do not. Some differentiate their choices on the basis of part of speech and conclude that since feel is a linking verb that takes a predicate adjective, bad, not badly, is called for, regardless of whether the cause is poor health or guilt feelings. Others point out that bad is a flat adverb and that therefore the -ly adverb form is wholly unnecessary and overcorrective. Still others say that badly goes with emotion, bad with physical health; and the converse is also occasionally argued too. Still others insist that the best thing to do is avoid badly entirely, and still others return to the old argument that to feel badly is to describe a flawed sense of touch. There may be some truth in each of these, but none of them is a satisfactory explanation for this pattern of Standard divided usage. Best advice: if you say and write feels bad, you may irritate fewer people than you will with feel badly, but you should be aware that this usage problem continues alive and vigorous, and neither the explanations nor the solutions being offered are likely to satisfy everyone. See also BAD; GOOD. | 1 |
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| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
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