Though this isn’t the first word that came to mind when I read this prompt, I would probably give up “fine.” You know the drill. Someone asks how you are and you say: “I’m fine.” Or something goes wrong and you say: “it’s fine.” Situations could be unfair, you could be exhausted, or even on your last leg and we continue to say “everything’s fine.”
You know, I googled the definition of that word. This is what I got:
Fine:
- Adjective, of high quality
- Adjective, (of a thread, filament, or person’s hair) thin
- Noun, very fine particles of mining or milling
- Adverb, in a satisfactory or pleasing manner. Very well.
- Verb, clarify (beer or wine) by causing precipitation of sediment during production.
- Verb, make or become thinner.
If everything is falling apart around you, it’s not of high quality or satisfactory or pleasing. You could view everything being fine as everything is thinning around you–maybe your hope is what’s thinning? But regardless, “fine” is a word I’m starting to dislike. I hate how automatically we say it these days. Someone asks how you’re doing and you give the short answer.
Maybe we need to expand our vocabulary or make it the norm to tell the truth?
I wish I had a solution to replacing the word “fine,” but even if we don’t want to automatically use that word, to say something different, we need to be able to trust the person we’re talking to.
That’s a whole ‘nother soapbox.
I’m going to try to resist the urge to use “fine” and not use it so regularly unless something is actually one of the definitions above.
nikki diekemper 