<p>^^Sure, but then the teachers would have to master the correct usage themselves, which apparently they have not.</p>
<p>“Good paying job”</p>
<p>Can someone explain to me the difference between these two answers to the question: “How are you?”:
“I’m good” and “I’m well”?</p>
<p>^^^ “I am good” is the sarcastic answer I usually hear from my H when he is trying to be …well… suggestive ;)</p>
<p>Re “good”/“well” (I’m usually leery about wading into this sort of thing in print, because of all the potential for being wrong without realizing it, but, hey, what’s anonymity for?):</p>
<p>–The “I am” construction takes an adjective, not an adverb.</p>
<p>–Therefore, “good” and “well” are both correct in this context, though “well” is being used here not in its more common (I think) adverbial sense but as an adjective.</p>
<p>–To me, “well” seems narrower in this context, suggesting more specifically good health, etc., perhaps because that is the sense in which the word seems to be used most frequently as an adjective.</p>
<p>–I think that some folks may use “well” in this context out of the mistaken belief that “good” is incorrect here – which it most assuredly ain’t.</p>
<p>Well, (no pun), I always thought that “I’m well” was the correct answer to the question: “How are you?” while “I’m good” is about one’s virtue as in “Mommy, I’ve been good today.”
Real, idiomatic English continues to elude me. :(</p>
<p>Avoid the dilemma and just say “I’m fine”. ;)</p>
<p>I always say “I’m well” or “I’m fine.” But I’m tempted to say “I did not ask about your morals” when someone says “I’m good.”</p>
<p>Iusually respond to “how are you?” with “Fair to partly cloudy”. It usually gets a smile, though occasionally a puzzled look.</p>
<p>For more chatter re “good”/“well,” see:</p>
<p>[Thanks</a>, I’m well](<a href=“http://baptism.co.nz/gram09.html]Thanks”>Thanks, I'm well)</p>
<p>[Pet</a> Peeve Du Jour: I’m well! - Heather Havrilesky - Open Salon](<a href=“http://open.salon.com/blog/heather_havrilesky/2008/04/16/pet_peeve_du_jour_im_well]Pet”>http://open.salon.com/blog/heather_havrilesky/2008/04/16/pet_peeve_du_jour_im_well)</p>
<p>[Grammar</a> Girl :: Good Versus Well](<a href=“http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/good-versus-well.aspx]Grammar”>http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/good-versus-well.aspx)</p>
<p>. . . and how about people with user names that I keep having to look up?</p>
<p>(just kidding about the “pet peeve” aspect, epistrophy, but you have contributed to making my OED well-thumbed.)</p>
<p>Thanks, epistrophy. I have discovered that I am prissy (Didn’t I know this already?) and totally confused by the last link about the usage of bad. “I feel bad” or “I feel badly” somehow does not mean the same thing to me as “I am bad.”
Or is it? In that case, well, my bad…</p>
<p>A trick for knowing when to say ‘bad’ or ‘badly’. Ask youself, “would I say ‘goodly’ here?”</p>
<p>“I feel pretty goodly about it…”</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Bad = adjective, and badly = adverb. Therefore “bad” is modifying the noun “I” and is describing your state of being. And “badly” is modifying the verb “feel” and thus is describing how well or poorly you can feel things. </p>
<p>So in other words you might say “I feel bad” if you were sick with the flu. And you might say “I feel badly” if you were wearing mittens and thus the sensitivity of your finger tips was dulled.</p>
<p>So when people say " I feel badly about this situation" they are incorrect?</p>
<p>^^Yes. They very likely meant that they feel bad. not badly - unless the situation somehow dealt with having an impaired sense of touch.</p>
<p>In today’s Chicago Tribune, the cover story ( about admissions corruption at U of I) used “clout” as a verb, as in “the students were clouted into the school.” Never heard that before.</p>
<p>were clouted? They got in because they had clout? New to me too.</p>
<p>My pet peeve is speakers who have one favorite phrase they repeat ad nauseam. Once our tour guide kept saying “I’m not gonna lie to you.”</p>
<p>Or: “That having been said,”</p>
<p>etc. After a while you only hear the silly catchphrase.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I learned that to clout is to hit–so the students were hit into the school? Maybe the reporter had been recently clouted on top of the head?</p>
<p>I’ve heard of people being clouted into obedience but I have no clue what the reporter or editor meant.</p>