My education is sorely lacking, for until being inspired by this board, I had not read any of Jane Austen. What a delight she is! But here is a somewhat troublesome passage, where Jane Bennet is ill and is confined to her bed.

They returned to her room on leaving the dining-parlour, and sat with her till summoned to coffee. She was still very poorly, and Elizabeth would not quit her at all, till late in the evening, when she had the comfort of seeing her sleep.

Grammatically, shouldn't it be poor rather than poorly? Was usage different in Austen's time?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <wordnerd>,

This is still in use: I am feeling poorly. It has rather an old-fashioned feel for me, and I'd be more likely to say it 'consciously', e.g. of a computer acting up, or when hungover. I suspect it might be normal usage in the North.

It feels like an adjective, not an adverb, though if it is it can only be predicative (not *in poorly condition); but I don't think it can be used adverbially: *she coughed poorly, *she lingered on poorly.

The expression "feeling poorly" is in common use in the Midlands. My brother, who now lives on the south coast, says that people there find it highly amusing when he uses these expressions.

The example "she coughed poorly" would, as aput says, not be used or if it were it would mean something quite different - she wasn't very good at coughing.

"He feels proper poorly" would be understood in the south but would be considered a little quaint.

It seems to me that by assuming that "was feeling" is a verb phrase, "poorly," being an adverb, makes grammatical sense, as it modifies how she felt. Quaint or not, I do hear it now and again.

Desensitised Asa, poorly feeling

But 'feel' takes adjective complements: she feels tired, she feels irritable, she feels insulted.

I also hear patients say, "I feel poorly"... fairly often, really.

Wordnerd, wouldn't "I feel poor" mean to feel "impecunious?"

Say wasn't "Feeling Poorly" a Simon and Garfunkel song?

Kalleh comments, "Wordnerd, wouldn't 'I feel poor' mean to feel 'impecunious?'"

Touché, madam. In the same way that "I feel bad' would mean "I feel like committing a naughty act today."

The word is indeed ambiguous.

I would have said that feeling poorly was the commonest way of expressing such a sentiment. Isn't the antonym to poorly also an adverb, or are you going to tell me that people don't say they are feeling well in your neck of the woods?

Some northern authors, such as David Saville, have badly as an alternative.

I know we've talked about "feeling bad" versus "feeling badly" here before, but when I think about it, what really is the difference? If you can't say "feeling badly" (when thinking of the emotional sense), why can you say "feeling poorly?"

It is my understanding that "feel badly" only pertains to physically feeling something. But if you are talking about emotional feelings, you are to say "feel bad."

The problem is that words in "-ly" are usually adverbs, but a few of them are adjectives. An adjective can be recognized by its fitting into the Determiner + Adj + N pattern;

a lively countenance
a likely story
a friendly greeting

There is no clear way of turning these "-ly" adjectives into adverb. If he greeted me in a friendly way, did he greet me... friendlily?

And there are dialectal differences too. In American "likely" can be an adverb -- "this result is likely driven by two forces" -- whereas for me it can only be an adjective -- "this result is likely to be driven by two forces".

We use poorly as an adjective as well:
I have several poorly students today.

I can't think of an alternative way of saying this.

I wouldn't say "several poorly students," I would say (and have many times!) several poor students. I agree that it could mean impecunious, though the context is the clue.

quote:

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I have several poorly students today

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I think I'd be more likely to say "I have several students poorly today".

quote:

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I wouldn't say "several poorly students," I would say (and have many times!) several _poor_ students. I agree that it could mean impecunious, though the context is the clue.

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To me that could only mean
i. they had no money
ii/they weren't very good at their work
iii/ they were unfortunate in some way.

In English here it couldn't mean they were unwell. That would be "poorly".

Ohhhhh, I thought by "poorly" he had meant academically poor. Sorry!

I have never heard anyone say he or she had "several poorly students." Here I think that would be misinterpreted (as I did) as a grammatically incorrect way of saying "they aren't very good at their work." If in fact you mean they aren't healthy (having colds, the flu, and the like), then we would say something like, "I have several sick students," which by the way can be irritating because you know that next week you are going to be ill!