Writing Tip 60: “Don’t Feel Badly”
Do you have the inability to feel? If so, you feel badly. If you’re talking about your state of mind, you feel bad.
Let’s take a moment to discuss sensory verbs: feel, taste, smell, sound, look, appear, and seem. If you are looking for a word to modify the noun before the verb, use an adjective. If you are modifying the verb, use an adverb.
For example:
“James Brown feels good.” Good is an adjective, modifying James Brown. If James Brown was having a rough day, he’d feel bad. If he felt “badly,” he would either be bad at empathizing or have some sort of sensory condition worth going to the doctor about.
To give another example:
“Dinner tasted delicious,” would be correct. If dinner tasted “deliciously,” I’d have all sorts of other questions about the live thing you were eating and then what perhaps it was eating.
It’s all about those 3rd grade basics: what adjectives and adverbs modify. I know we all slip up, so consider this your friendly reminder.