word choice - "I need to wash my hands bad[ly]"





“I feel bad for you” versus “I feel badly for you”



I'm terrible at the usage of bad vs. badly. Given the sentence:



I need to wash my hands bad[ly].



Should the correct term be bad or badly?



Answer



Part of your issue is the placement of badly. Where you have it in your sentence, it is trying to modify "wash"; however, what you want is for it to modify "need." So I would suggest this:



I badly need to wash my hands.



And even better:



I really need to wash my hands.



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