'Well-' and 'badly-' + pp (well-paid, badly-paid)
Would you rather have a very well-paid job which is extremely boring, or a badly-paid job which you enjoy?
This grammar item came up in a recent Task 2 about farmers.
Stefano said farming is 'bad-payed* work'. (Great point, thanks for sharing).
I understand how this problem occurred, from my knowledge of French (🇫🇷mal-payé = bad-paid*, 🇫🇷bien-payé = good-paid*)
Interestingly, Google says that 'bad-paid*' is correct (it's not!).
Here's what Ludwig .guru says, and I agree:
Use 'badly-paid' to describe a job that pays relatively little compared to the work required (also: poorly-paid, low-paid or low-paying).
For example:
- "Amazon warehouses are staffed by badly-paid workers".
Notice the hyphen (-), which is used to create a one-word adjective ('badly-paid') before the noun ('workers').
Compare with this sentence:
'Young workers are often poorly trained and badly paid' (no hyphen).
Well-paid
The opposite of 'badly' is 'well'. Here's are some useful examples of adjectives starting with well-
People
- Well-behaved
- Well-known (= famous)
- Well-dressed
- Well-equipped (gym)
- Well-built (houses) (also people = strong)
- Well-kept (= clean and tidy e.g. garden, houses)
Badly-
- Badly-behaved
- Badly-damaged
- Badly-injured/hurt
See this Daily Tip for more uses of the Past Participle.
The Past Participle is the 3rd form of the verb e.g.
- pay - paid - paid (irregular)
- behave - behaved - behaved (regular)
If you want to describe the verb (pay, behave), you need an adverb (usually +ly like 'badly' 'poorly').
'Well' is an irregular adverb - it comes from 'good'.
Practice using these examples:
- Think of someone you know who is well-behaved/badly-behaved, well-dressed, well-travelled etc.
Think about how you would answer this question in the Speaking exam:
Would you rather have a very well-paid but extremely boring job, or a badly-paid job which you enjoy?
