McDonald's punks Italians

Can you hear the grammatical error in this video? Remember that tasted is a linking verb, so what comes after it should be a predicate adjective, in this case, not an adverb. The following verbs of sense perception are all linking verbs.

• look: Damn, you look ravishing. (adjective)
• smell: The food smells delicious. (adjective)
• sound: That music sounds shitty. (adjective)
• taste: Don't I taste delightful? (adjective)
• feel: Ooh, your tongue feels amazing. (adjective)

We can add the linking verb seem to the above.

• seem: You seem a little tighter tonight. (adjective)

You can do predicate nominatives with linking verbs of sense if you add the preposition like:

• look: Damn, you look like shit. (noun)
• smell: The food smells like heaven. (noun)
• sound: That music sounds like a fart. (noun phrase)
• taste: Don't I taste like squid? (noun)
• feel: Ooh, your tongue feels like sandpaper. (noun)

Don't use adverbs with linking verbs of sense. So don't say:

look: Damn, you look ravishingly. (adjective)

smell: The food smells deliciously. (adjective)

sound: That music sounds shittily. (adjective)

taste: Don't I taste delightfully? (adjective)

feel: Ooh, your tongue feels amazingly. (adjective)

All wrong. Now you know not to say goofy things like feel badly (it's feel bad) or what the AI voice in the above-linked YouTube Short does with taste.

The most basic linking verb is to be. It follows the same rules as above, and it can be followed by a predicate nominative (noun) or a predicate adjective.

• I am a teacher. (noun phrase)
• You are so dead. (adjective)
• You're dead meat, Larusso. (noun phrase)
• She is tired. (adjective)
• You're all crazy to be here for my stupid speech. (adjective)
• They're Indian. (adjective)

This kind of post is close to what I'm doing on Substack.