Doubts, doubts and more doubts. This is the reality of Portuguese speakers. Around the world, our language has a reputation for being difficult, full of rules and exceptions that confuse those who are learning and even those who are already familiar with Portuguese.
Some questions are very insistent (or is it that we are the ones who insist on making mistakes?), among them, the correct use of bad and bad. Who hasn't wondered when and how to use each of the terms, right? This is certainly one of the questions that probe our particular linguistic universe, but there's nothing like thinking a little to come up with an answer. If you still don't know which one is correct, bad or bad, stay tuned for tips to never go wrong again.
First of all, we must make it very clear that both forms exist, bad with "u" and bad with “l”. Despite being phonetically identical, they are semantically very different, which makes it easier to choose the correct spelling. In order to correctly use these two problem words, it is enough to make the opposition between their antonyms. Watch:
Mal is an adverb, the antonym of good.
bad is an adjective, the antonym of well.
Examples:
the rulers did bad use of public money. (bad ≠ well)
The student left because he was feeling bad.(bad ≠ good)
Bad is the antonym of good and is therefore an adjective. Mal is the antonym of good, it can be a conjunction, an adverb or a common noun
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How about we learn a little about the etymology of words bad and bad?
The word bad originates in latin mad. It is used by speakers to refer to something that is not of good quality, to someone who does bad things and to several other meanings that are intended to qualify, that is, it is a adjective:
The car engine had a bad performance.
marcio is a bad employee.
already the word bad, which also originates in Latin (evil), can be one adverb, a conjunction or a common noun, therefore, can have numerous meanings. Look at the examples:
He did a poorly done homework and rushed off to school. (adverb)
As soon as he got home from work, he had to go back because he had forgotten his house keys. (temporal conjunction)
The patient suffers from an incurable disease. (common noun)
In the oral modality, we identify, according to the context, what meaning to attribute to the two words, but in the written mode only the correct spelling can guarantee a good understanding of the message. The confusion arises because the words bad and evil are pronounced the same, but written in different ways and with different meanings, characteristics that classify them as homophone words, a common phenomenon in the language Portuguese.
By Luana Castro
Graduated in Letters
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PEREZ, Luana Castro Alves. "Bad or evil?"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/gramatica/mau-ou-mal.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.