How did you sleep last night?

July 16, 2016 7:47 AM

To this question I typically respond "well". My girlfriend says grammatically it should be "good" if I am not also including "I slept..." preceding. We both agree that "I slept well," is grammatically correct, but who is correct when the verb is omitted?
posted by masters2010 to Writing & Language (25 answers total)

How does your girlfriend justify this bizarre claim? I'm pretty certain she's wrong but I'm curious what her argument is.
posted by town of cats at 7:50 AM on July 16, 2016 [10 favorites]

Yeah, this makes no sense. Can she give any other examples of this happening when the verb is not explicitly stated?
posted by unknowncommand at 7:53 AM on July 16, 2016

Response by poster: Her argument is that when the verb is omitted the adverb is thereby no longer modifying a verb and therefore incorrect.
posted by masters2010 at 7:53 AM on July 16, 2016

One defense: My sleep was good. I had a good sleep. If "sleep"is a noun (synonym to "nap"), "good" works.
posted by slidell at 7:55 AM on July 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

... So to me, it hinges on whether the question was "how did you sleep?" (well) or "how was your sleep?" (good).
posted by slidell at 7:56 AM on July 16, 2016 [17 favorites]

When the verb is omitted it's not longer a sentence, so the question of grammar becomes kind of a non-thing, unless you do the sensible thing and consider the implied sentence. The implied sentence is "I slept well" so well is correct. But I would say "good," too, just because that feels right, correct or not. Actually I would say, "fine."

Anyway, if the verb is omitted is the word suddenly modifying a noun? If not, then why would an adjective be correct, even assuming your girlfriend's argument?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:58 AM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

The response is a fragment, so there isn't really going to be a correct grammatical structure to worry about. That said, the answer generally assumes the same subject/verb setup as the question prompt, so it would be "good" to "how was your sleep" and "well" to "how did you sleep".
posted by Think_Long at 7:58 AM on July 16, 2016

Clearly, you don't say, "I slept good." You say, "I slept well." By shortening the response to "Well" the verb is still implied, which means you're correct.
posted by Jubey at 7:58 AM on July 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

Your girlfriend does not understand the definition of an adverb and is incorrect.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:59 AM on July 16, 2016 [13 favorites]

I would say 'good' in this instance because 'well' alone sounds like the beginning of a sentence and doesn't stand alone as a reply. I have no grammatical defense though.
posted by hydrobatidae at 8:07 AM on July 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Well I'm a professional copy editor, and I say she's wrong. However, because I edit mostly fiction, one aspect of my job is knowing, understanding and appreciating the fact that actual humans don't always speak/write/think perfect grammar. So in real life some people do answer the question "How did you sleep last night?" with "Good" and that's just something I accept. But no, she's not right.
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:12 AM on July 16, 2016 [18 favorites]

If your answer was "Like a baby," would she "correct" you to "Baby-like" since "I slept" was unsaid? Her reasoning is incorrect.
posted by ejs at 8:12 AM on July 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Her reasoning is wrong but both answers are perfectly acceptable.
posted by jessamyn at 8:40 AM on July 16, 2016 [13 favorites]

She's super wrong. If she just wanted to say it herself, I wouldn't even notice the colloquialism, but to correct your correct usage is ultra extremely wrong.
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:41 AM on July 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

When you leave out parts of a sentence, you act as though they're still there for the remainder of that sentence. Think of the dropped parts as parenthetical:
"How did you sleep?"
"(I slept) Well."
posted by Etrigan at 8:46 AM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

To expand on hydrobatidae's answer above, I think a complication is that when you say "Well," it may not be clear whether you are saying "I slept well" (which is clearly correct), or using it as an interjection to launch into a longer answer ("Well, I was fine until the dog started barking, then..."). If you are limiting yourself to one word, answering "Good" avoids this ambiguity. I wouldn't argue that it's correct but it may have come into common usage for conveying its meaning more clearly. (I would probably answer "Good," while knowing that it's technically incorrect.)
posted by hsieu at 8:57 AM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just because the verb is unspoken doesn't mean it's no longer a verb (and it's not unspoken; the asker spoke it.)

Technically she's wrong , but either will do for everyday speech.
posted by kapers at 9:09 AM on July 16, 2016

Sometimes I'll say something I know is grammatically incorrect because I percieve it to be the common usage. I'm trying to avoid being pretentious. But she's totally grammatically wrong.
posted by Kalmya at 11:02 AM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Another editor here: you're right, she's wrong. (I mean, she's not wrong to say whatever sounds right to her, but she's wrong to claim you're wrong. According to traditional grammar, "Well" is the only correct form in that context.)
posted by languagehat at 2:51 PM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

James Brown felt good, not well. I'm also a copyeditor, and "correct" is when enough people use a word a certain way. English is loaded with examples of words that now have "correct" usages that were previously verboten. "I feel good" left the barn eons ago. I say it all the time just to make fuddy-duddies squirm.
posted by Camofrog at 11:07 PM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

[So my point is that your argument is moot.]
posted by Camofrog at 11:09 PM on July 16, 2016

I don't know why you think fuddy-duddies should squirm at "I feel good" since it actually is grammatically correct. So is "I feel well"--but the two sentences have different meanings.
posted by mpark at 11:41 PM on July 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

> James Brown felt good, not well. I'm also a copyeditor, and "correct" is when enough people use a word a certain way. English is loaded with examples of words that now have "correct" usages that were previously verboten. "I feel good" left the barn eons ago. I say it all the time just to make fuddy-duddies squirm.

But the question is not about that. Do you also say "I slept good" all the time? Different phrases are different. You're also ignoring that the claim is that "it should be 'good' if I am not also including 'I slept...' preceding." The presence or absence of "I slept..." is irrelevant to your point.
posted by languagehat at 8:24 AM on July 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Do you also say "I slept good" all the time?

I would find that to be an unobjectionable example of English As She Is Spoke, yes.
posted by Shmuel510 at 10:10 AM on July 17, 2016

'On the couch.'
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:36 PM on July 17, 2016 [1 favorite]