One of the age-old grammar debates is whether or not it's correct to say, " I'm good,"

or, " I am well," when someone asks you how you 're doing.

At Gotham Writers Workshop, where I teach grammar,

we teach that either answer is actually okay.

And I'm going to explain to you why.

To understand the debate, it's important to know the difference between " good " and " well ".

" Good " functions as an adjective in a sentence, which means that it describes nouns,

and " well " functions as an adverb in a sentence, which means it describes verbs.

My favorite coffee cup has the phrase " Superheroes do good. I 'm doing well."

Which is kind of a snarky way to say that " well " is preferable to " good ".

Let me show you why in this instance it is.

So, in this case we have the word " good ", which is our adjective,

" do " is our verb, and " superheroes " is our subject.

An adjective can't describe a verb,

so " good " is not describing how the superhero is doing.

" Good " is describing a noun, and in this case it's sort of an invisible word.

We might think of it as superheroes do good works or they do good deeds.

" Good " is describing the work of the superheroes.

I 'm doing well.

In this case we have the word " well ", which is an adverb which describes a verb.

In this case the verb in our sentence is " doing ".

The subject of our sentence is " I ".

So, how am I doing?

I 'm doing well.

This is where it gets tricky and where the debate comes into play.

Say that you ask me how I am, and I just say simply, " I am well,"

or I might say, " I am good."

In this sentence " am " is our verb, " well " is our adverb and " I " am the subject.

Normally, we would think it would be correct for " well " to describe the verb,

but " am " happens to be something we call a linking verb,

which means it 's not doing much action, it 's just linking the subject to the verb.

So in this case it can actually be okay to say, " I am good,"

using the adjective form to describe " I ".

It's almost like you just imagine that this is not here.

You see, " good " is describing " I ", the adjective is describing the noun.

So it gets incredibly complicated and I think life is a little too short

to worry too much about whether you need the adjective form or the adverb form.

You can be sure that whenever you 're saying " I am good," or, " I am well,"

there's a grammarian out there who 's willing to back you up.