Sometimes, it feels as though the English language is practically begging to be made into a dad joke. Think: “The average person is really mean," or “I’m reading a book about gravity—it’s impossible to put down.”
Cue the groans. Still, dad jokes aren't without their merit when it comes to sparking genuine curiosity about our language.
Our listener Tim Broach writes, "My wife will sometimes say she needs to shower badly. I’ll usually make the dad joke that I’d prefer she shower well. But it got me thinking—why do we use a negative-sounding adverb like badly with verbs like need?"
Would it be possible to shower badly? Sure. Maybe if you forget to take your clothes off, or mistake a chocolate bar for soap. But that’s not what "badly" means in this context.
“Badly” has a plethora of meanings, many of them negative, but in informal usage, it means “very much” or “greatly.” This use is mostly seen with the verbs “want” and “need,” or in the phrase “in need.”
The Oxford English Dictionary has evidence for this usage as far back as 1813, as well as this example from Rudyard Kipling’s short story collection Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories: “British regiments were wanted, badly wanted, at the battle front.”
Though some style guides have criticized the use of "badly" to mean "very much," it's now well established and considered idiomatic in American English. However, that doesn't mean it's without controversy. For more on that, listen to the audio above.
