Well vs Good

[Songster]

Hello,

Someone asked me today how things were going and I answered with "It's going good." He corrected me by saying "it's going well." I just wanted to know why I can't say "it is going good." I asked my friend but he just said it's phonetically incorrect. Thank you!

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

1. Well is the adverb of the adjective good. After action verbs you have to use adverbs not adjectives.

2. There is another well which is an adjective meaning "in good health": How are you? I am very well, thanks.

[rewboss]

In standard English, "good" is an adjective and "well" is an adverb (unless, as Jamshid says, it means "in good health).

Adjectives describe things -- for example, in the phrase "the romantic music", "romantic" is an adjective which describes "music".

Adverbs often describe how things are done -- in the sentence "He sang romantically", "romantically" is an adverb which describes how he sang.

Most English adverbs end in -ly: romantically, badly, slowly, quickly. But some are irregular. The most irregular adjective/adverb pair is "good" (adjective) and "well" (adverb).

That's standard English, of course. Most people speak a dialect of English, and some dialects use "good" as both an adjective and an adverb. That's seen by many people as wrong, and a sign of unintelligence. Your friend might be being a bit snobbish, but he is also technically correct.