For those of you riding height-advantaged horses, please dismount: You think that, when you ask us punier-pony riders “How are you?” if we answer “Good”, we are wrong.
Nope.
Here we go, doubters:
IN BRIEF:
Opposite “good”, the word “bad”:
You either feel bad now, or good.
Opposite “badly” is “well”,
To say if hands feel what they should.
Which is Glass and Which the Ice? If You Feel Well, You Don’t Think Twice.
We’re sorting clear glass
Out from ice,
Whoever’s fastest
Wins a prize.
Juan:
“I feel badly,
My hands are numb,
I feel bad,
‘Cause I can’t come.”
Thieu:
“I feel well;
My hands are fine;
I feel good;
That prize is mine!”
Grammar Goddess:
“I feel well”.
Means touch is good;
Your fingers feel
Just what they should.
“I feel good.”
Means health’s at peak.
(Or fingers work,
But grammar’s weak.)
What More Appropriate Prize Than a Handwarmer?
Icky-poo. Designed for guys to hide in public that which should be done in private? (I know: Sexist.)
Now, I AM the Grammar Goddess1, but I detect rightness based upon pattern-matching–my younger-day schools were too “advanced” to believe in teaching that old-fashioned grammar stuff–whereas Grammar Girl explains, and clearly, the rules and reasons behind feeling good and bad.
Footnote:
I may be (and am!) Grammar Goddess, Spelling Sorceress, and Punctuation Princess-, but my awesome powers take effect only when I preach, or edit the writing of others. When I generate my own pieces, some mysterious force pulls me from those pedestals and plunges me into the Chasm of Error, from where I can extricate myself only long after my pieces are published.
Hat-tip to: The Byronic Man, a blog with a whole buncha meaty, thought-provoking posts. Browsing over there gave me the idea for this post.
2014-03-23–changed title
2014-03-03–removed second superfluous superscript (and alliterally commented thereon).
The Last Half 