(Refer to rule #3 above for more information about sense verbs and verbs of appearance.)Ĭonfusion can occur because well can function either as an adverb or an adjective. Remember, though, that an adjective follows sense-verbs and be-verbs, so you also feel good, look good, smell good, are good, have been good, etc. Good is an adjective, so you do not do good or live good, but you do well and live well. It would mean that you are unable to feel, as though your hands were partially numb.

So you'd say, 'I feel bad.' Saying you feel badly would be like saying you play football badly. When you want to describe how you feel, you should use an adjective (Why? Feel is a sense verb see rule #3 above).

Using the adjective careful here would not make sense, because it would mean that the dog gives off an odor of carefulness. Here carefully is an adverb that modifies the verb smells. Writing Letters of Recommendation for Students.He was also, and above all, very possibly a great liar.' (Bill Bryson, One Summer: America, 1927. Every word he ever wrote about himself made him seem valorous, calm, and wise. ' Byrd was smart, handsome, reasonably brave, and unquestionably generous, but he was also almost pathologically vain, pompous, and self-serving.They are the ones who will seek to gut you on every occasion.” (Mayor Edward Koch) 'The most guileful amongst the reporters are those who appear friendly and smile and seem to be supportive.In its beauty and design that vision of the soaring stands, the pattern of forty thousand empetalled faces, the velvet and unalterable geometry of the playing field, and the small lean figures of the players, set there, lonely, tense, and waiting in their places, bright, desperate solitary atoms encircled by that huge wall of nameless faces, is incredible.' (Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River, 1935) 'The scene is instant, whole and wonderful.I believe that I never knew what the word 'round' meant until I saw the earth from space.' (Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, quoted by Daniel B. 'The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic.'I was happy, Dad was proud, and my new friends were gracious.' (Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Examples and Observations of Predicative Adjectives

What is adjective in grammar