Good Use of Well

By Colleen Walsh Fong

Do you hesitate before answering when asked, “How are you?” Even those of us who produce professional writing products occasionally pause to stop the word “good” from crossing our lips. It feels like the right thing to say, but it isn’t.

The correct answer to this question is “well,” or “I’m well.”

If you don’t want to take my word for it, let me explain the technical reason for that usage.

“Well” is correct here because it’s an adverb. Adverbs modify verbs. They qualify actions and tell us how well a given action is carried out. An active example of this is saying that Malcolm Butler played quite well in this year’s Super Bowl. You wouldn’t say that he played “good.” Well I guess you could say that, but your statement would be grammatically incorrect. And that’s not good.

Use Well in Good Health

Health questions in general should be answered with the word “well,” assuming the person you are talking about is well. But what would an English language rule be without an exception? Here’s the one to this usage rule: health questions that refer to emotional states. In those cases the word “good” is the correct choice.

Here’s an example of that sort of interchange.

Question: “How do you feel about your grades?”

Answer: “I feel really good about them!”

“Good” is an adjective. Adjectives modify, or describe nouns. Saying a noun is good means that the noun in question is above normal, like when you’re describing the taste of food or your academic performance. And if you can use the word “good” to describe your grades, you probably didn’t need to read this grammatical message.

Colleen is a freelance writer producing custom copy for businesses of all sizes.