“Feel free to pass it along to whomever you think ought to read it.” — From an e-mail I received recently.
“I feel badly about it.” — Heard frequently in my world.
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Occasionally—not often, but occasionally—I do something out of pure beneficence. Get ready. I am going to make you smarter and save you from continued embarrassment.
I know not everyone cares about exemplary grammar. If you don’t, that’s fine. Wait a few weeks, and I promise the next issue will have nothing—well, almost nothing—to do with grammar.
But there are many of you who do care, and I know you’re doing your best. There is such a thing, however, as trying too hard. The above quotations, both of which are grammatically wrong, seem to be the result of over-exertion.
Contrary to legend, I do not disdain people who make language errors. I have even been known to welcome the grammatically incorrect into my home, as long as they’re not bearing rhubarb pie. But it does pain me to hear someone trying hard and getting it wrong. This is compassion, not contempt.
So I’m here to help. Before we get started, you might want to find a quiet place, and make sure you’ve had your morning coffee. This could be taxing.
All right, then.
“Pass it along to whomever you think ought to read it.” Sure, that sounds right. I hear highly intelligent, educated people use this construction all the time. “Whomever” is the object of the preposition “to,” and that’s why you’re using the objective case, right?
Wrong.
Well, then, it’s the direct object of “you think,” right? “You think whomever.” Must be objective case, right?
Wrong again. Would you say, “I think him ought to read it”? Probably not.
Here’s the answer. The sentence should read, “Pass it along to whoever you think ought to read it.”
Really? Yes, really. “Whoever” is the subject of the clause “whoever (you think) ought to read it.” He (or she) (or whoever) ought to read it (you think). The entire clause is the object of the preposition “to,” but the case of a pronoun depends on how the pronoun is used within the clause, not on how the clause is used in the sentence. Here, the pronoun is the subject of its clause, so it’s nominative case.
Further illustration:
Give it to whoever asks for it first. (She asks for it first.)
Give it to whomever you like best. (You like her best.)
Questions?
Okay, next. At least a few times a week, I hear someone say, “I feel badly about it,” or “I feel badly for him.” Interestingly, it usually comes from someone who is very conscientious about grammar. And who reads this publication.
And what’s wrong with that? If it’s correct to say, “I drive carefully” or “She talks quietly,” then surely it’s appropriate to say, “I feel badly.” After all, “feel” is a verb, and an adverb modifies a verb, so you use the adverb “badly,” not the adjective “bad,” to modify “feel.”
Right?
Sorry. What is needed here is not an adverb to modify “feel,” but a predicate adjective to modify “I.”
(Hey, I did warn you—did I not?—that some of you wouldn’t be interested in this. So stop it with the eye rolling. Besides, I think most of you would react negatively if you heard someone say, for example, “Me and him is going to the beach.” Well, grammar is grammar. And, by the way, you learned all this, or were supposed to, in eighth grade.)
If you say, “I feel badly,” I understand you to mean there is something wrong with your tactile sense. Perhaps you have nerve damage, or maybe your fingers are numb from the cold.
But that isn’t really what you mean, is it? You probably mean you feel sorry, or guilty, or sympathetic, or maybe sick.
So let’s talk about verbs.
There are two basic kinds of verbs. First, there are transitive verbs. They require a direct object. He throws the ball. I love my job. We are eating pizza for dinner.
Second, there are intransitive verbs—no direct object. But wait! There are two kinds of intransitive verbs: complete and linking.
An intransitive complete verb, as the name suggests, requires nothing further to complete the thought, because it describes an action. I fell. He coughed. She is smiling. That doesn’t mean the sentence has to end with the verb. There could be all kinds of stuff after it—I fell yesterday while cleaning leaves out of the rain gutter—but mechanically the noun and the verb together make a complete thought.
An intransitive linking verb does not describe an action. Instead, it links the subject of a clause to a word that either modifies or further identifies the subject. The linked word may be a predicate noun: He is a fool. It may be a predicate pronoun: It was I who broke the window. Or it may be a predicate adjective: She looks pretty. He is crazy. That sounds important.
A verb might be in one category or another, depending on how it’s used:
He runs slowly. (Intransitive complete.) He runs the store. (Transitive.)
I smell smoke. (Transitive.) The trash smells awful. (Intransitive linking.)
He is looking. (Intransitive complete.) He looks sad. (Intransitive linking.)
Now, when I say, with grammatical precision, “I feel bad,” the predicate adjective “bad” describes my condition—it says something about me, not about the manner in which I feel. In the same vein, I might say that I feel happy, or sad, or stupid, or nervous. I would not say, “I feel happily,” or “I feel stupidly.” Those sentences suggest that I am using my sense of touch in a happy or stupid manner, which presumably is not what I mean.
Similarly, one should not say, “I feel badly.” I feel bad for anyone who says that.
Ah! But one would say, “I feel well,” right? And isn’t “well” an adverb? So isn’t my entire case unraveling?
No. In one of the greatest grammatical tragedies of all time, the people who invented our language decided that “well” could be both an adverb and an adjective, with meanings that are only microscopically different. “Well” is the adverb form of “good,” as in “He plays the oboe well.” But it is also an adjective meaning “in good health” or “in satisfactory condition,” as in “Is he well enough to see visitors?” This dual usage is demonstrated elegantly by the saying, “All’s well that ends well” (where the first “well” is a predicate adjective modifying “all,” and the second “well” is an adverb modifying “ends”).
So, yes, it is proper to say “I feel well,” if you mean you are feeling in good health, and are using “well” as an adjective to describe your condition. But, of course, you can also say “I feel good” to describe a generally positive feeling, as in “I feel good about my performance on the exam.” And if you don’t feel good about it, you probably feel bad about it.
Is that clear? Congratulations, then. You are smarter than you used to be.
No charge.
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Make the world a better place. Forward this edition of The Johnston Papers to whoever you think should read it.
