My arm was bleeding badly. or My arm was bleeding. Badly. ETA - of course, if this is the character speaking, whatever fits his/her speech pattern.
Bad is an adjective. It modifies a noun, e.g. Bad Robot. Badly is an adverb. It modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb. Note: This is true of MOST -ly words. My arm was bleeding badly. was bleeding is the verb, badly modifies the verb, and therefore must be an adverb. Placing a comma after bleeding is not strictly correct, but is definitely okay in fiction, and places more emphasis on badly. Shadowwalker is correct, though, about dialogue. People do not always use correct English when speaking, and dialogue can reflect that.
I agree with shadowalker that it should reflect who the character. In Britain just about everyone would say badly in this context apart from very poorly educated people (but getting more popular because of the amount of US television as is the reply to "do you want something?" - "no, I'm good" Arrggggghhhh! whether you are good or bad is irrelevant to if you want more coffee dammit!), but I know it's much more acceptable in America to say "bad" or "it's real good" instead of "it's really good" etc. So ask yourself what would your character say...
lol... I agree, I hear soooo many people say, "Nah, I'm good." hahaha and... your sliced apple looks delicious and I dont even like apples that much... :/
Yes, but the problem with "I am good" has nothing to do with adverb/adjective swapping. The adjective good is applied to the pronoun I, which is perfectly acceptable. The only "problem" is that good has a meaning in the sentence that does not relate to formal definitions of the word. It is slang. It is an idiom. That may make it confusing sematically, but syntactically it is fine.
I have been watching too much American TV so I get it, but American slang and idioms can be very confusing at times, mostly because we are taught British English in school. I now see that reputed newspapers in my country which are very proud of the colonial legacy is slowly switching over to American English. I don't know if it is a good thing or bad.
The idea of "I am good" is that am is a "to be" verb. These verbs only state that something exists, but not what it's doing. Since there's no "doing," there's no action to modify. In that case, "good" would modify the noun instead of the verb, so you'll get an adjective instead of an adverb. Same with "It is I." It sounds archaic, but technically it's correct. I'd still go with "It is me," though, since it sounds more familiar.
Very good point. I would only be concerned about smaller grammatical issues if it wasn't apart of the dialogue. Lord knows, most people-characters included-do not speak the Queen's English. :/
Wrong. That verb (there is only one, there is no "these verbs") can also give the state of something. "I am seated." Wrong; the verb to be can take an adverb. "I am seated comfortably". Wrong. It's not the same at all. "It is I" v. "it is me" is all about whether "is" has a subject and object or has two subjects (because it asserts an identity between the apparent subject and the complement. Different languages handle that differently, and English has never properly settled how to handle it (though it does not seem to be settling on subject and object).
