"Badly" versus "poorly"

I was saying to an American friend, "I pronounce still bad," which she said is a mistake, saying it should be poorly.

Well, I get that part, but when I asked if I can say badly, she said I shouldn't. I asked an Englishman and he said it's perfectly fine. So is it a difference between American English and British English, or am I just not getting it?

Solution 1:

The NOAD reports that the first meaning of poorly is "in a way or at a level that is considered inadequate," while the first meaning of badly is "in an unsatisfactory, inadequate, or unsuccessful way."

The NOAD has also a note about the usage of bad.

Confusion in the use of bad versus badly usually has to do with verbs called copulas, such as feel or seem. Thus, standard usage calls for I feel bad, not I feel badly. As a precise speaker or writer would explain, I feel badly means "I do not have a good sense of touch."

There is a slight difference between poorly, and badly: Poorly should be used when something is considered inadequate, while badly should be used when something is inadequate.

I work in a badly managed company.
He spelt a few poorly articulated words.

Solution 2:

In colloquial English English, as opposed to American English, "I feel poorly" means "I feel ill." It is connected exclusively to one's health. If, for example, it were used to express poor tactile sense it would have some qualifying word or phrase; eg. "I feel things very poorly with my fingers."

Some dialects might use "badly" in the same way, but generally this is used of emotions, as when one has hurt someone's feelings one might say, "I feel very badly about that.

"Badly" can be used in other ways, such as "The motor repairs were done very badly," (In an unsatisfactory manner.)

Solution 3:

My grandmother corrected me on saying badly I think because it implied doing wrong whereas poorly meant it was not up to par or sufficient. As I think about it there are probably more adequate words like insuffciently that would be clearer in meaning. Anyway whether right or wrong, I cringe when I hear someone say they are performing badly. It hurts my ears.

Solution 4:

Whether you use "bad/badly" vs. "poor/poorly", I don't think there's much difference in this context. They both are grammatical and understandable here as "I still do not pronounce well".

There is a trend in American English to drop 'ly' so that something that acts like an adverb instead looks like an adjective. So

I talk bad

is OK

This is similar to saying

I don't talk too good

where 'well' the adverb is replaced by 'good' the adjective.

(which is classic 'ungrammatical' speech but is what people might say acceptably in a very colloquial/low register setting.)

One most likely would not use 'poor' in this context because it would really stand out as weird ('poor' in this meaning of 'not good' is not particularly common in American English).

"I pronounce poorly", "I pronounce badly", and "I pronounce bad" are all fine in AmE, the last one not so much only because "pronounce", as a more technical word, is of higher register than "bad" and so it sounds incongruous.