I was recently in a debate about whether a person should say they don’t “feel good” versus “feel well…” my thought was that if you feel well, it means your sense of feel is very strong, not you feel healthy, or not sick.
Was I right in saying that? I don’t hear people say “I don’t feel good” that often, but to me it seems that the people who do are correct grammar-wise. Is this correct?!
Interesting question.
Your confusion arises from thinking that “well” is only an adverb, as in, “I run well; I unicycle well; I play the piano well; I feel well, etc…”
However, well is also an adjective, meaning healthy. Are you well? I am not well. He is not a well man. Etc. You can substitute “healthy”, or “fit” to get a similar meaning.
Good and well are both adjectives. “Well” has more to do with health than “good” does. “I feel well,” means I feel healthy.
“I feel good,” means I feel good. Good can mean healthy, or cheerful, or happy, or virtuous, or confident… it is a less specific word.
So grammatically, the two expressions are equally acceptable. “I feel well,” is more specific. However, well is the common one in English, and good is, I think, more common in American.
Let me preface this by saying I am no Miss Ayelery, but she hasn’t responded yet so I will give it my best. I hope she corrects me if I am wrong.
I would say “well” is more of an adverb, so it would be used to describe the action of feeling.
How are you feeling?
I am well.
I am not well.
“Good” is more of an adjective, and so it descrives the state of being.
How are you?
I am good.
I am not good.
How are you? or How are you doing?
I would use the adverb well, because it is asking how you are or doing, and are and doing is are verbs.
I am well
I am not well.
Is that reasonable?
Well, we will have to wait for Miss Ayelery, but I understand the difference now. Well, is not as I thought, only an adverb, and that was were the mix up originated.
But I also know that with most senses, you would have to use good, because if you say “He smells well” it means his sense of smell is good, not the way his odor is given off to the room. But with being, I realize, that is difference, because “feeling well” isn’t the sense of feel you get from touching the hot stove, or rubbing ice with your fingers.
Saying “I am well” is relatively unambiguous, but saying “I feel well” is subject to the various meanings you outline (it could mean “I am well” or “My sense of feeling is in good operation”). It’s a matter of social agreement to interpret the term “I feel well” as equivalent to “I am well”; it’s not in the language itself. It’s a colloquialism.
It reminds me of the saying “Time flies like an arrow.” This is nearly uniformly interpreted by native English speakers as a simile in which time’s passage is compared to the swift movement of an arrow. But the language of that sentence is far more ambiguous. It could be an imperative sentence ordering you to measure the speed of flies the way you measure the speed of arrows (by “timing” them). It could be referring to a particular species of flies–time flies–and noting that they are attracted to arrows (Groucho Marx once remarked, when someone said the phrase in question to him, that “Fruit flies like a banana”).
Much of the English language is filled with these ambiguities, but we’re so acculturated to disregard them as possible meanings that we usually don’t even recognize that they exist.
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Darn. I didn’t read to the bottom of this thread. Monkeyman beat me to it.
Anyway, since I had already found this link, here it is…
I Feel Good – James Brown. He sure can move his feet.
Feel, like the other sense verbs and any form of the verb to be, can be a linking verb to connect a predicate adjective to the subject noun. These verbs are special cases that may be followed by an adjective describing the subject noun or an adverb modifying the verb itself. It is grammatically correct to say, “I feel well,” meaning I am healthy with well used in adjective form describing the subject pronoun, I. One may also “feel carefully along the ledge for a key,” with carefully an adverb describing how one feels. One may also feel good, as in “George feels good,” or “I feel good,” with good being a predicate adjective modifying the subject noun, George or subject pronoun, I.
Sopose your visiting a person in hospital. There more likly to say I feel good to describe there emotional state. Were as they would be unlikly to say I feel well, because there in hospital. -Thats how I see it
Good grief, I had never seen him dance before. That’s freakin’ awesome.