Lest it be said that my research for this book was not extremely thorough and far-reaching, I flaunt the following usage example:
Male student: “You sure do make love good.”
Female teacher, in bed next to male student: “Well. I make love well.”
That fascinating citation serves three purposes at once. First, it demonstrates a common error. Second, it demonstrates how correcting others’ errors is so clichéd that animated sitcoms can make jokes about it. Third, it vindicates my decision to spend my late nights watching Family Guy instead of reading grammar texts. (That’s right, in composing this highly academic work I researched not one but two cartoon shows. You’re in good hands.)
Adverb confusion, as demonstrated by the student above, is one of the most common language flubs. Luckily, it’s also easy to avoid.
“Good” is an adjective because it modifies nouns, as in, “Mrs. Jones is a good teacher.” “Well” is an adverb, and adverbs modify verbs. “She teaches well.” Adverbs also modify adjectives, prepositions, and other adverbs.
Many adverbs are easy to spot because they end in “-ly”—“happily,” “slowly,” “eagerly.” But many don’t, “well” being a case in point. Oh, and just because “family” ends in “-ly” doesn’t mean it’s an adverb. It’s usually a noun, which is why “a family-oriented comedy” keeps the hyphen.
Be careful with sentences such as, “He keeps his lawn beautiful.” This use of an adjective is correct because you’re not describing his action of “keeping,” you’re describing the condition of his lawn, a noun. Consider “He acts well” and “He acts good.” In the first, you’re describing the verb, to act. In the second, what you’re really saying is, “He acts as if he is good.” Therefore, “good” is modifying a person and not an action. So both “He acts well” and “He acts good” are correct, depending on which you mean.
Some adverbs take the same form as adjectives and adverbs, “wrong” being an obvious example to anyone who read the introduction to this book. These can be stinkers. For example, we get so used to normal cases such as “quick” having the adverb “quickly” and “slow” having the adverb “slowly” that we’re thrown off by things like “fast.” For “fast,” the adjective and adverb are one and the same. So while teachers who are fast also go fast, those who are slow prefer to go slowly. And, for some students, well, that’s good.