{"id":242,"date":"2008-05-24T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2008-05-24T18:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/he-wanted-to-play-so-bad\/"},"modified":"2008-10-26T12:32:04","modified_gmt":"2008-10-26T18:32:04","slug":"he-wanted-to-play-so-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/05\/he-wanted-to-play-so-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"“He wanted to play so bad …”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I heard this the other day when a woman was talking about her son having a strong desire to play baseball.<\/p>\n

Problems:<\/strong>
\n1. The adjective should be an adverb.
\n2. What would be the adverbial phrase is adjacent to the wrong verb.<\/p>\n

Explanation:<\/strong>
\nThis sentence illustrates two common English blunders:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The speaker used an adjective as an adverb.<\/li>\n
  2. The speaker put the (defective) adverbial phrase next to the wrong verb.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The word “bad” is an adjective; one must add “ly” to make it an adverb (“badly”), which is required to modify a verb.<\/p>\n

    The meaning of “badly” when modifying “play” could easily be the first definition of the adverb: in an undesirable way<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    In contrast, another meaning of the adverb “badly” is very much<\/em>, and this definition would make sense when “badly” modifies “wanted” in the sentence.<\/p>\n

    The word “so” is used informally as an adverb to mean extremely or very<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    So the meaning of “so badly” is very, very much<\/em> when this adverbial phrase follows the verb “wanted”.<\/p>\n

    “He wanted very, very much to play …” makes more sense than “He wanted to play in an undesirable way …” when someone is talking about a strong desire instead of a poor performance.<\/p>\n

    Solution:<\/strong>
    \n“He wanted so badly to play …”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I heard this the other day when a woman was talking about her son having a strong desire to play baseball. Problems: 1. The adjective should be an adverb. 2. What would be the adverbial phrase is adjacent to the wrong verb. 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