Beat bad vs beat badly

Question

Is it correct to say that the use badly is only used when there is a negative conjugation?

For example. When you beat someone at a game. Would you say you beat a person bad or badly? Because isn't the word bad in that context just slang for good?

Would the normal grammar rules of bad vs badly still apply here?

Okay, how about Being married to a nymphomaniac is great! She badly needs to have sex morning, noon, and night! — FumbleFingers, Feb 14 '19 at 17:31
@FumbleFingers There's already an answer to this with an example of non-negative usage of badly. Yours was good too though. — dan-klasson, Feb 14 '19 at 17:34
If it hadn't been for that earlier question (which I still think does essentially address the issue you're asking about), I'd have closevoted to migrate to English Language Learners - where I've just addressed this very issue myself. It's actually irrelevant to cite examples where the "full context" is actually "positive", because this only arises where the actual verb being modified by "badly" (often, *want, need* or similar) negatively correlates with the primary subject (sex, watching a good movie,...) — FumbleFingers, Feb 14 '19 at 17:52
...in short, *badly* always has negative implications for its target word. It hasn't taken on any of the relatively recent positive associations of the "flat adverb" form *bad* in "reverse slang" usages. The kind of distinction (based on meanings, registers, etc.) between "flat" and "*-ly* inflected" adverbs was certainly addressed by my answer on ELL (I haven't checked to see if it is on the ELU one, but if not it *sure / surely* should be! :) — FumbleFingers, Feb 14 '19 at 17:57
...in which context it's worth noting that in the case of a very similar primarily negatively-associated "flat" vs "-ly inflected" pair, we can in fact use both forms in fully positive contexts: *This comment is awful / awfully good!* — FumbleFingers, Feb 14 '19 at 18:08

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

The meaning of badly that you're talking about is

Badly
adverb

2 : to a great or intense degree
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/badly

Thus, we beat them and we beat them badly have distinct meanings. In the first case, you might be describing a game you won by a single point; in the latter, a game that was a total blowout, you won by 50 points (or whatever makes sense for that game).

This use of badly sometimes has negative connotations. For example, if a steak were "badly charred" that would mean that it had been burnt to a high degree, and that that degree of burntness was too high - whereas "the steak was charred" has a more neutral meaning (at least to people who sometimes enjoy their meat to be a little burnt).

In other contexts, badly can be entirely neutral. For example, "I badly want to see that movie" has no negative connotation. It means almost the exact same thing as "I really want to see that movie."

"badly want to see". good example – dan-klasson Feb 14 '19 at 16:49 — dan-klasson, Feb 14 '19 at 16:49

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 14 '19 at 18:27

In American English either is fine, but using "bad" this way is informal. The two adverbs are synonyms, with "bad" being defined as "badly" and "badly" (in the example sentence) is defined as "severely".

Here are examples of both in a similar context:

Okie Lite scrambled Missouri 45-24. Granted, Missouri may have been distracted by their school’s bid to become an automatic annual W in the SEC, but OSU still managed to beat them badly while playing one of their poorer games of the season.
_{The Most Predictable College Football Season? Things Change}

“I saw Washington State play Colorado this year,” Morris said. “We’re going to beat them bad.”
_{Peterson: Monte Morris says Cyclones will beat Washington State 'bad' in the Alamo Bowl}

Beat bad vs beat badly

2 Answers2