Tuesday, June 07, 2005

In the history of conversation, nobody has ever been "fine"

1:47 PM 7 comments


During a recent keynote at a conference for the International Association of Workforce Professionals, I spent several minutes telling the audience about one of the most horribly overused words in the English language: fine.

"After looking up the word 'fine' in 23 different dictionaries, I noticed that it was never listed!" I joked with the audience.

"Upon further research, it was brought to my attention that 'fine' was actually an acronym for..."

Feelings
I'm
Not
Expressing

"Why? Because nobody's fine! In the history of conversation, nobody has ever been fine. People only say "fine" to shield how they really feel and, more often than not, avoid conversation."

After a brief moment of head nodding and chuckling, my audience spent some time practicing various front porch behaviors that helped them avoid "fine" and become more personally available. You may have read about one of these techniques before called Giving Flavored Answers to Fruitless Questions.

A few hours after the keynote, a woman from the audience stopped off at my booth to tell the following story:

"After your speech about 10 of us went out to lunch. When the waitress came over to introduce herself I asked, 'How are you?' to which she replied, 'F.I.N.E.' All 10 of us nearly spit out our sodas we were laughing so hard. It was great! I don't think any of us will think about that word the same way again!"

LET ME ASK YA THIS...

When someone says, "fine," what does that mean to you?

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
Author/Speaker/That guy with the nametag
www.hellomynameisscott.com

7 comments:

I think people often respond to "How are you?" with "Fine" because they think the other person really isn't interested in how they are. And quite often, that's probably an accurate assessment. We can change the type of questions we ask, and we can also change how we ask them so people know that we really are interested in what's going on with them.

As a die-hard logophile, I know what the word means, and I know that there are many ways it can be interpreted in the context of the particular question you posed.

Whenever someone tells me she's "fine," I listen to both what's being said, and what's unsaid. I *could* enter into a deeper conversation to find out exactly what the person meant, and do when time and opportunity are in my favor. However, in those incredibly fleeting interactions I have a million times/day, I've come to trust my intuition when combining the said and unsaid.

Therefore, "fine," combined with a bright smile, perky body language, and an upbeat tone, leads me to believe that everything's groovy with her. "Fine," said in a low tone, with next to no smile, no eye contact, and no hint of joy leads me to believe the person is probably just ok (meaning just getting by).

We have many such vague words in our lexicon, including many of the synonyms for "fine." Add that to the fact that we have quite a number of words with many synonyms, and it's easy to see why understanding precisely what *anyone* means when using a word is difficult, at best.

For me, the introduction of other cues is what helps me connect with the person, regardless of the meaning of the actual word used.

I agree with Stacy. With this posting in mind, I was chatting with a running buddy and we concluded that "fine" can be accompanied by any number of punctuation. The punctuation (in addition to the body language Stacy mentions) adds color to "fine".

Sometimes, you can tred beyond fine, but you need to do so carefully. Tredding too far (mis reading the other signs) can lead to trouble.

I have heard the acronym:

F(ouled) up
Insecure
Neurotic
Emotional

"Fine" is not a feeling. Happy, sad, angry...those are feelings. "Fine" is a cover-up!

I highly agree that the word "fine" is overused and is a cover-up or cop-out. I have been guilty of using the same response myself, not wanting others to know the truth. Many people feel that no one really cares, and many other people are afraid to be personable – afraid that being open and honest would make them vulnerable. The word "fine" doesn't express feelings because --who wants to express their true feelings to someone they don't know??? Unfortunately, in many societies, with the high-tech living and with the sad events of 9-11, many people stay to themselves and don't really want to get involved with people that they don't know. Therefore, they avoid getting into detailed conversations by using the word "fine" and then they continue on with whatever they were doing. One reason for this is because they don't want to take the time to get to know someone, and they don't want to take the chance of someone sensing that things are not well with them. I have been in destitute times and used the word "fine" just to avoid getting into a conversation that would invoke deep emotional feelings. Some people don't want to risk getting emotional over something that may be going on in their life, so they respond with the word "fine" to avoid getting into a conversation. I know -- because I speak from experience!

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