Well/Good

Here’s one of our biggest grammar pet peeves: the use of adjectives when an adverb is correct. Getting back to basics, adjectives modify nouns; adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.

Example 1:
Q: How’re you doing?
A: I’m doing good/great/terrific. (cringe – incorrect, though you hear it all the time. These are all adjectives. They cannot modify “doing,” a verb.)
A: I’m doing well/fine/fabulously/horrifically. (woohoo – correct. These are all adverbs.)

Example 2:
Q: How’d the game go?
A. I played bad/awesome. (Incorrect. Again, these are adjectives.)
A. The team played terribly/awesomely/like gods. (Correct. These are all adverbs… except for the last one, which was a simile. Who’s paying attention?)

Okay, we’ll get off our grammarian high horse now. You may now return to your normally scheduled Facebook programming.