How to feel.

I was listening to a podcast by America's favorite priest, Fr. Mike Schmitz, but he was driving me nuts. Although the title of the video/podcast episode is "3 Reasons You Still Feel Bad After Confession," throughout it he talks about why one would "feel badly."

Grrr! Father, you need to get to English language confession, right NOW!

As George Phipps, the world's most physically fit English professor (played by Kirk Douglas) put it in the 1949 film A Letter to Three Wives, "You feel badly with your fingers." When your feelings are bad, you feel bad. Not badly.

This one catches a lot of people up, even smarties like Fr. Mike. But it's really simple. While it's true that bad can be used as an adverb, that's just another example of the dictionary throwing in the towel, like a modern DA saying people will commit crimes if they want, so we won't prosecute. 

Properly speaking, bad is an adjective. And badly is always an adverb. Adjectives modify nouns. Adverbs modify verbs. Adverbs can also modify adjectives or other adverbs, but there are none in this simple statement:

As we can see, bad modifies the noun: I. How do I feel? Bad. But when the word is the adverb badly, it's modifying the verb, feel. How is my tactile sense performing? Badly. (The verb performing being the modified word here.)

So I feel bad means I have bad feelings, while I feel badly means I am bad at feeling things, which is a statement one would seldom be obliged to make. 

Another reason this screws us up so often is that the reverse, I feel good, is usually treated as passable although it ought to be I feel well, well being the proper adverb. But Merriam-Webster muddies the waters, saying, among other foolish things: 

Adverbial good has been under attack from the schoolroom since the 19th century. Insistence on well rather than good has resulted in a split in connotation: well is standard, neutral, and colorless, while good is emotionally charged and emphatic. This makes good the adverb of choice in sports.

So... dumbbells who play sports should use good? Really, they make it seem like good is fine as an adverb if you're a moron. Not like dictionary editors, who are smarty-pantses who suck at sports. Why do we have to drag class and envy into everything?

Bottom line: If you want to sound smart, feel bad if something negative is up, feel well if something positive is up. The dictionary guys are going to look down on you either way, because that's the only joy they have, but you'll feel better.