I Hope You're Doing Good *and* Doing Well
My wife’s late mother was the Chief of the Grammar Police.
She was quick to remind you that you couldn’t end a sentence with a preposition (the answer to “Where’s that at?” was always “between the A and the T”) and that you weren’t going to “lay” down you were going to lie down (“Chickens lay, not people!”)
She would probably be rolling over in her grave, then, to hear me say “I hope you’re doing good,” wrinkling her nose and clenching her teeth as she hissed “doing well!”
And so to my wonderful mother-in-law, I’m sorry, but I’m actually going to push back on this correction and make a case for why I hope you are doing both good and well, wherever this missive from the Prism blog finds you.
While I remember very little from my elementary grammar lessons and much more from my romps through the woods with my Daisy BB gun and summers at the neighborhood pool,
I do recall that adjectives are descriptive words and nouns are “things.” The word “good,” then is actually both an adjective and a noun, depending on how you use it.
We’re all familiar with the phrase “doing good in the world.” Even my late mother-in-law wouldn’t correct this use of “doing good,” which is the exact context I’m intending when I say, “I hope you’re doing good.” While, yes, I hope you’re doing well— I hope you’re healthy, happy, and fulfilled— I also hope you are doing good— the noun kind— out in your corner of the world.
I hope you’re rolling in your neighbor’s garbage can when they forget, or getting their mail for them while they’re out of town.
I hope you’re buying a stranger’s coffee every now and then, or encouraging a young student while they’re studying as you wait to pick up your morning caffeine.
I hope you’re listening and asking questions, considering someone else’s point of view, and kindly disagreeing when disagreements arise.
Most definitely, I hope you and others are doing well, but in addition, I hope we are all doing good where and how we can, not just “with all that’s going on in the world,” but always, simply because “good” is something we can always choose to do.
-Alan