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Adverb or Adjective? Hello I'd like to know what to use in this sentence. Is the Adverb "badly" well placed or I need the adj "bad"? _ I always think how badly people behave these days.
May 16, 2013 6:53 PM
Corrections · 3
1

Adverb or Adjective?

Hello I'd like to know what to use in this sentence. Is the Adverb "badly" well placed or I need the adj "bad"?

I always think how badly people behave these days.

 

 

It is possible to use either bad or badly, but this will result in two different sentence meanings. If you use the adverb “badly” then it should read “I always think how badly people behave these days”, meaning you think that people don’t behave very nicely these days.

If you use the adjective “bad” then from a strict grammatical viewpoint, the sentence would mean that you think about the behaviour of bad people and it would have to read "I always think about how bad people behave these days"

May 16, 2013
1

Adverb or Adjective?

 

Hello. I'd like to know what to use in this sentence. Is the Adverb if "badly" well placed is used correctly or I need the adj "bad" is the correct form?

"I always think how badly people behave these days." This means people are being rude etc.  In using "bad", it can become either an adjective or a noun!  As an adjective, it means wicked/evil people.  As a noun, it means people are becoming more evil.

May 16, 2013

The sentence is perfect. It doesn't make sense with 'bad' unless 'behave' is replaced with 'are'.

 

One other correction:

"Is the Adverb "badly" well placed or do I need the adj "bad"?"

May 16, 2013
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