I think the 'well paid' and 'not well' analogy suffers from adverb/adjective confusion (by which I mean muddying, not that you are confused!).
Well is has long been used both an adjective and an adverb, but as an adjective (albeit stemming from an adverb) well dates back to 1450, according to my OED. Poorly, on the other hand, is listed in the dictionary (OED and the Chambers link) as a colloquialism, and, to my mind, it's a jarring one. Maybe it's the -ly thing: my mind expects a verb to follow.
I'm probably being culturally insensitive here, but I think poorly-as-adjective sounds uneducated. In a country where people will regularly correct others for saying 'less' when 'fewer' is appropriate, and others will re-word your sentences so they don't end in a preposition, this is the kind of crap up with which we should not put!
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-04-10 07:29 pm (UTC)Well is has long been used both an adjective and an adverb, but as an adjective (albeit stemming from an adverb) well dates back to 1450, according to my OED. Poorly, on the other hand, is listed in the dictionary (OED and the Chambers link) as a colloquialism, and, to my mind, it's a jarring one. Maybe it's the -ly thing: my mind expects a verb to follow.
I'm probably being culturally insensitive here, but I think poorly-as-adjective sounds uneducated. In a country where people will regularly correct others for saying 'less' when 'fewer' is appropriate, and others will re-word your sentences so they don't end in a preposition, this is the kind of crap up with which we should not put!