All’s Well and Good

It seems a simple question: “How are you?” But how do you answer? “I’m good,” is a common response. Your Grandma might insist you say, “I’m well.” Not that I want you to pick a fight with Grandma, but you can let other grammar nitpickers know: it’s perfectly acceptable to say, “I’m good.” And there is no need to respond to the taunting, “How good are you?”

What Does Well Mean?

The hecklers may taunt that well is an adverb and modifies verbs. Good is an adjective that modifies nouns, but there is more to it. Linking verbs differ from action verbs. Action verbs include run, jumps, and swim. To describe them you’d use the adverb well.  Linking verbs aren’t about actions. They are more about connecting other words together. To be or is (a form of to be) function as linking verbs. Seem, appear, look, and become also act to link a noun and adjective or noun and sense.

Confusion comes because some verbs can be both linking verbs and action verbs. If you can replace the verb with a form of to be, it is probably a linking verb. For example you could replace feels with is in the sentence: He feels bad. It would still make sense. But not if the sentence were: He feels badly. He is badly doesn’t work. In this case feel is an action verb.

Say, "I’m Good" with Confidence

Because am is a linking verb and you use adjectives after linking verbs, it is okay to say, “I’m good.” There is nothing wrong with using the adjective good. Predicate adjectives refer to the noun before the linking verb.

Confusion can also come because well can be both an adverb and a predicate adjective. When you say, “I am well,” well is a predicate adjective. In this case well is generally reserved to mean healthy. If your state of health is being asked in the question, “How are you?” it is appropriate to say, “I am well.” If you’re just describing your general state, some argue that, “I am good,” is actually more appropriate.

We could avoid this tension, even arguments perhaps, if we went back to the question, “How do you do?” according to The New American Etiquette © 1941, How do you do “does not require a direct answer. It is simply a greeting – a social opener. From it, as a starting point, the conversation can go off in any direction with complete disregard for the question involved. ‘How are you?’ differs in that it calls for an answer as to the state of a person’s health or general condition. For that reason it may cause a fleeting moment of pain to a person in ill health or under uncomfortable mental strain who is trying to forget. Unless used with care, it is not as good a greeting as, ‘How do you do?’”