different or differently? adjective or adverb?

[Viking]

I'm unsure when to use the adjective and the adverb form of words. One example:

Emokids as they called have a fairly bad reputation. The picture people get when they see these kids is not a charming one. Because of the way they dress a lot of people don't look high on them, on the contrary. Mostly because they dress different than most people do.

In the text above, "high" and "different" are, or rather should be adverbs, "highly" and "differently".

"Dress differently" sounds quite idiomatic but "look high on" (and "look highly on") doesn't. Look down or or despice is better.

Or am I wrong?

[Alan]

Hi Viking,

The question of whether to use adverb or adjective is to consider which word/verb the adjective/adverb is qualifying. The next question is whether the verb describes an activity or a state. For example you could say: The lake looks peaceful, which describes a state of peacefulness. You could also say: They looked peacfully at the sight of the children playing, which describes the activity of looking at the children.

In your sentence I would suggest they dress differently from ... or they dress in a different way from On the other hand your sentence:

[Abr4xii]

Wouldn't "They dress differently"...."dress" being a verb here as "differently" is an adverb...suggest (as an example)that they put their clothes on in a different order than other people?.
"They dress different than...." seems right.