Resources
Feel Bad/Badly
Two Ways, With Feeling
By Evan Jenkins
A visitor to the Web site said she and her boyfriend had differed over the phrase "I feel badly." He insisted it was the right way to describe sadness. She held that "badly," an adverb, describing how something is done, can't be used where an adjective, describing a thing or condition, is called for; it had to be "I feel bad." In fact, a hoary joke among people who hate "feel badly" is that it can only mean to suffer from an underdeveloped sense of touch. But we can have it both ways.
Used to describe an emotional state, "feel badly" is accepted by most good writers and sounds perfectly natural to these ears — an exception that proves the rule governing linking (copulative) verbs, which generally require adjectives. To describe an upset stomach, “feel badly” sounds less natural, though it has some scholarly support. But wherever the pain, “feel bad” is technically unassailable and always safe.
CJR
