A chara, – Patricia Barker (Letters, October 27th) asks when it became normal to respond to “How are you?” with “Good” rather than with “Well” or “Very well”.
During my 83 years I have rarely heard the “Well” response. The response to the usually phrased “How’s it going?” was almost always “Good” or “Bad”, or some variations such as: “Great”, “Not so great”, “Not too good”, “I’d want to be as good as I am”, “If I was any better, they’d have to tie me down”, “Not too bad, considering the crowd I’m dealing with”, “Fairly good, considering everything”, “Only fair to middling”, “Fine out”, or “Grand”.
Response heard to a query about a lady’s health: “She’s not so good. She’s in bed with the doctor.”
Anyway, as Patricia suggested, we should thank the Lord that there is nothing worse bothering us in our lives.
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– Le meas,
TOM HORGAN,
Waterville, Co Kerry.