It's a shame

A while back, I rhapsodized about the correct use of apostrophes. Among other things, I said that apostrophes are used to show possession: Archie's amiability, Betty's buoyancy, Jughead's jocundity. I briefly mentioned an exception to the rule, and I want to address that exception further, so nobody does any finger-pointin' my way when they screw up.

Its---that's I-T-S, no apostrophe---is a possessive pronoun. "It" (whatever "it" is) owns, has possession of, is imbued with, etc., whatever follows in the sentence, e.g.: its marketability, its assailability, its je ne sais quois (I learned that in French Freedom 101).

It's---that's I-T-apostrophe-S---is a contraction meaning "it is." That's all it means. If we write it's marketability makes it a no-brainer to sell, then we're really saying it is marketability makes it a no-brainer to sell, which will probably lose us a sale to anybody with a brain.

Here's hoping it's a no-brainer for you, from now on.

Everything's alright, right?

Wrong.

Alright is not a word. Not! Not! Not! Well, okay, it may be becoming a word, but in conservative, standard written English, avoid it. Use "all right," and everything'll be...peachy keen.

We use words like already and altogether, which sound like all ready and all together, but the one-word-words mean something different than the two-word-words. Not so with alright and all right. They both mean that everything's...hunky dory.

I suspect that alright came into usage because of the very human desire to simplify things (except when we're making them more complicated than they need be, but that's another story). And how do words become words? People use 'em!

Forty or so years ago, Robert Heinlein introduced the word grok in his book, Stranger in a Strange Land. The book, and the concept of the ability to grok, became wildly popular. People started saying grok all the time, even if they hadn't read the book. The result? Dictionary publishers added grok to their dictionary. It became an "official" word.

As years passed, however, people stopped saying grok. These days, if you don't know what it means, and you want to look it up, you'd better have an old dictionary, because, as it fell out of usage, dictionary publishers stopped including it in their dictionaries. Yep, they can do that, and they should, because dictionaries follow trends in usage. They don't make stuff up that the rest of us are expected to blindly obey. And the natural flow of words into and out of a language--the ingress of alright, and the ingress and subsequent egress of grok, is part of the beauty of a living language, like English, as opposed to a dead one, like Latin (Grokum? Grokorus? Grokissimus? I don't think so).

Now, for those of you who don't know what grok means...read the book! HAHAHAHA!!!

Feeling Bad v. Feeling Badly

Hoo boy! I'm gonna try to explain this one, but just remember--we're talking about the English language, and the rules sometime sound like a Rube Goldberg contraption looks. It works, but by the time you get from start to finish, you've forgotten why.

Question: How do you feel?

You could say, I feel bad, or you could say, I feel badly. If the question isn't addressing your sense of touch, however, you sounded pretty silly when you said, "I feel badly." Wanna know why? Sure you do...

Badly is an adverb. In fact, any word that has -ly as a suffix is an adverb (ugly isn't, because ug isn't a word, although it oughta be). As an adverb, it modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. In the sentence, I feel badly, it's modifiying the verb feel. In other words, it's telling me that your sensory input has left the building--that you literally can't feel anything, or not very well, at least. Can you feel the mouse in your right hand? The clothes on your skin (assuming, of course...)? The air blowing from your heater/air conditioner/fan? If so, then you don't feel badly!

Let's go back to the original question: How do you feel? If someone asked you that, and you were the sort of quick-witted sophisticate that reads The Curmudgeonly Writer's blog, you'd suspect that the questioner was being a smartass, and you'd ask for clarification. How do I feel about what?, you might say (straight down your nose, if you want to be a smartass back). That's our clue, and my cue---let's talk ba-a-a-a--a-a-d (as opposed to badly, unhkay?).

Bad is an adjective. In the sentence, I feel bad, it's a predicate adjective. It's an adjective because it modifies the pronoun "I" (adjectives modify nouns and pronouns; they're nice and uncomplicated that way). The predicate part comes from the fact that it flows out of the verb feel (when you see the word "predicate" in a discussion about grammar, just think "verb", and yes, grammar lovers, I'm oversimplifying).

So if you're feeling lousy (but not lousily) about something (your bankruptcy, your pending divorce, your utter worthlessness in the grand scheme of things--I could go on and on), the word describing how you're feeling is an adjective. Bad is the basic negative word for your feeling, not badly. We tend to add that -ly at the end of bad because we think we sound refined ("Lookee! I used a two syllable word!!!).

Want an easy way to remember this rule? Turn your frown upside down, and imagine feeling good about your bankruptcy, divorce, etc. You wouldn't say you feel goodly, would you? Ha! I didn't think so.