Imagine a situation when somebody brushes you slightly with their shopping cart, opens the door without seeing that you are there, cuts in front of you in the line by mistake and says, “Oh, I’m sorry” or “My apologies.”
What is your response?
The reason I’m asking is that in this region people invariably respond with, “Oh, you are fine.” Not “I’m fine” or “it’s fine”, which would make sense to me but “You are fine.”
Example:
“I’m so sorry!”
“You are fine!”
I haven’t been able to get used to this in six years. The response sounds so bizarre to me. My question is: is this a regional thing or is it more wide-spread?
Clarissa's Blog 
I’d say it’s either regional or new. I don’t recall ever hearing it before.
My standard answer is “that’s okay” or “no harm done” if that’s the case. and “Go to hell you thoughtless bastard!” when it isn’t.
Okay I made the last part up.
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I was starting to think you’d been living in Eastern Europe for too long. š
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You may both find this over-the-top in terms of annoyance:
Pizzicato Five — “Good”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUXR3GqYDeE
š
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“You’re fine” is “It wasn’t a big deal that you brushed me with your cart. I have not taken offense and/or accept your apology.”
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It was originally, ‘you’re OK’, meaning it is understood the incident was an accident and no offense is taken
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They do it in Ohio but that’s not far from where you are.
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I have heard this here in Delaware for the past ten years or so, but not earlier than that. It is still uncommon here, but becoming more frequent, I think. It is disconcerting to me, too.
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So it’s spreading! That’s not good.
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It’s crossed the Atlantic! A variant occurs in Yorkshire – ‘You’re all right,’ which can also be a reply meaning ‘no thanks’ when you offer a cup of coffee – took me ages to get my head around this.
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“Itās crossed the Atlantic! A variant occurs in Yorkshire ā āYouāre all right,ā which can also be a reply meaning āno thanksā when you offer a cup of coffee ā took me ages to get my head around this.”
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“you’re all right” sounds more like an old regional expression (not that I know, just a guess).
“cheers” for “thank you” threw me, not understanding but it just sounds goofy.
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There are also actual people (not just TV characters ) who say “ta” for thanks. It’s incredibly cute. š
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I’m pretty sure that “ta” is from Scandinavian (Danish tak, Norwegian takk, Swedish tack).
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Part of me realizes that that kind of formulaic language doesn’t lend itself to analysis and part of me thinks it’s kind of presumptuous … I’d be sorely tempted to respond
“Damn straight!”
or
“Maybe if I punch you in the nose I can get an ‘you’re excellent!'”
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HELL YES NEEDS MORE NUTMEG
Makes no sense at all, but if this works for you, please post results. š
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I hear it occasionally in both the West and the Midwest. I think it’s more of a “new thing” than regional. It doesn’t really bother me. I think it’s meant to be a cheerful sort of thing. As in “You didn’t/offend or hurt me. Your fine. I’m fine. Everything is good.”
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“Your fine. Iām fine. Everything is good.ā
Finding that sentiment to be profoundly irritating just might be a sign that I’ve been in Central/Eastern Europe too long…
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What I cannot tolerate is “Everything is good.” As in, “How are you?” “I am good.” I mention this to native speakers of English, educated and literate ones, and they do not understand why it is jarring or even really recognize that it is ungrammatical. I do not remember people saying this in the past. “How is your father?” “Good.”
Ah, and also: people do not understand that there is such a thing as “to do good” and it is not the same as “to do well.”
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“As in, āHow are you?ā āI am good.ā I mention this to native speakers of English, educated and literate ones, and they do not understand why it is jarring or even really recognize that it is ungrammatical.”
“Ah, and also: people do not understand that there is such a thing as āto do goodā and it is not the same as āto do well.ā”
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I had a class with a professor who regularly said “you can’t do good unless you’re doing well”.
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“I had a class with a professor who regularly said āyou canāt do good unless youāre doing wellā.”
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“I’m good” doesn’t bother me. It’s a different meaning from “I’m fine.” which is the traditional answer. To me, “I’m good” means something like ‘really great’ or at least ‘better than usual’ while ‘fine’ means ‘okay, neither great nor terrible’.
Also, for me, “well” as an answer to a “how are/is…..?” is information about a person’s state of health and not their general emotional well being.
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I know, on a logical level, that people are not looking for an in-depth, detailed update whenever they ask me, “How are you?”
But I never fail to provide one. Just in case.
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So Cliff, people now do not say well or fine or other yet more positive words, but only use good.
That is of course easier since one then needs only one word. It may also be more convenient since people no longer use any form of complex syntax in English and must depend entirely upon very simple word order to communicate, so reducing the number of words used is helpful.
??? I know that sounds whack but it just suddenly hit me … you need fewer total words if you are going to make everything less subtle.
…like calling turbulence bumpy air as they do now, so people can understand. ???
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“people now do not say well or fine or other yet more positive words, but only use good”
I completely agree that that’s horrible…. do they put stupid pills in the water now or what?
Even if I’ve been in Eastern Europe too long there’s probably no way I could live in the US again…. which brings up the question of where I could go were I to move (which I’m not planning on any time soon).
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People are really very, very poor at listening to tone these days, even when the format is audio-visual and not merely written. For example if I give myself a backhanded compliment and say something like, “Finally I’ve got this written, but it has taken a thousand years. I imagine I must be a writer now,” people will take that as me big-noting myself and trying to seem superior. They don’t understand the irony. They don’t understand that I am making a joke. It is remarkable how little can be conveyed unless your resort to linguistic pablum.
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In Australia an answer of “good” is laconic. It’s supposed to deflect further prying.
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What does “fine” mean, then?
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Australians don’t normally say “fine”. British people do. Australians say, “Ewyergoin good?”
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OK, so it is the ungrammatical substitute, but with same meaning. Interesting.
BTW there is an Australian visiting here. He is quite interesting and says what one has to understand about Australia is that it started as a prison and is still informed, and haunted by this history. That the more you can understand about prison culture the more you can understand about there … just as how in Louisiana the paradigm is still slavery, or how in Japan the Empire. It was an interesting conversation.
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He is right about that. That is perfectly correct, psychologically. So much of the way Australians think and respond is very defensive. To become accepted by Aussies it is very important not to be threatening, to be a bit daft. If you are in the slightest bit too direct or not an affable clown, this will be deemed to be too threatening.
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Z, I wonder if the same paradigm applies to Georgia. I learnt that Georgia started out as a penal colony in elementary school and later as an alternative to debtor’s prisons. I don’t know what the paradigm for Arizona is (“We just won the Mexican American War: Always 1848”) or Florida.
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Means you forgot how to say “arite” š
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I checked the ape ball and this is what it said:
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It’s great for diagnozing the mother complex, thank you! All one should do is substitute “you” with “the world.”
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Isn’t this essentially a matrix for Transactional Analysis?
“You may be OK, but I am fucking fabulous …” — me trying my best not to channel Eddie Izzard … š
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Yeah, that is where I got it from. Some transactional analysis thingie. Anyway, I’m not sure why we need to negotiate our status or well-being with others. It’s a rather infantile process.
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It’s better than playing hip-check and ankle derby with people in motorized scooters or someone not acknowledging you’re there. :-p
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Shakti, that is very interesting about Georgia and I did not know it. I do not know the state well except that I tend to like and relate to people from Atlanta and am sure I would dislike living anywhere else there (except I suppose the Athens bubble, where I have never been).
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Atlanta is a world city. So that might have something to do with it. I find many places suffer from the “great city, lousy state” conundrum. š
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Maybe the world city thing but it feels to me more as though they were from a real place, not just as city but as whole culture, like a country. Noticeable, the way you notice Californians (people from there, not people who just happen to live there now) have one. And southern and sophisticated as opposed to southern and not; that may be the city thing but I think it is not only that. I am not sure. The sense of coming from a place that is a real place. I am thinking the landscape must have a personality to it too, and the place has an age to it. But that is very interesting about the penal colony history, I did not know it. Yet wait … was it? … http://www.earlyamericancrime.com/convict-transportation/business-of-transportation/georgia
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Atlanta was built to be a transportation hub. Anyways, your the link seems to mirror Wikipedia. I think myths can also be as important as the truth to people’s paradigm of a place though. I had an acquaintance who specialized in military history, who asserted that the Confederates burned Atlanta first. Try telling that to Atlantans. With that thought I fell into a K-Hole, and discovered that Gone With the Wind is author-self-insert fiction.
The sense of place comes from the mythologizing in part. I’ve been to tourist islands with cities and they don’t have that same sense of history. The blandification is deliberate and almost total.
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What are K-hole and author-self-insert fiction?
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[coughs something about “Atlanta Couldn’t Organise a Gardenparty”, which “foreign” journalists of a certain age will recognise immediately …]
YOU DON’T KNOW MAAAAN, I WAS THERE
š
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I hate the “you’re fine” thing. It’s heavily used in the midwest and it doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s not just you.
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It’s good to know I’m not alone on this one!
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I hate the āyouāre fineā thing. Itās heavily used in the midwest and it doesnāt make any sense to me. Itās not just you
“You’re fine” is “You have not violated the social contract” but if you don’t actually apologize for brushing past someone or cutting in line, the Midwesterner will note it internally or with a look. Same deal with putting your cart away in the grocery store. It’s not about being bumped or brushed past so much. š Maybe that’s why it bothers you?
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My react to “You are fine” is an instant “Don’t tell me how I feel! ” Childhood traumas.
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It’s not about how you feel, if I understand correctly, it’s an appraisal of your social standing in the other person’s view. I’m glad shakti wrote that because it now suddenly makes sense to me.
A: (after accidentally brush against someone) “Oops, sorry about that!”
B “You’re fine” (meaning: your apology meets my standards of civilized behavior, you are not yet an unperson).
I find that message more potentially disturbing than someone telling me how I feel, but then personal historical traumas are like fingerprints – no two person’s are alike.
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“A: (after accidentally brush against someone) āOops, sorry about that!ā B āYouāre fineā (meaning: your apology meets my standards of civilized behavior, you are not yet an unperson).”
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Could be worse …
I’m in a Plastic People Prison where the inmates don’t even acknowledge that anyone does this.
Cannot. Bloody. Well. Leave. Soon. Enough.
I am not accustomed to being called “the polite Brit”, as if what I’m doing is anything more than simply recognising the inconvenience of two or more people being in each other’s space …
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I both say this and hear “you’re fine” in Minneapolis (which fits the Midwestern hypothesis). I understand it as an unpretentious way to say “you have no reason to apologize.” It’s a response when someone has said “I’m sorry” when they weren’t actually at fault for anything, or especially when they say “excuse me,” wanting to get past you, but there is enough room for them to pass without you moving. Something like “that’s OK” or “no problem” would imply that you are forgiving them for a real infraction, and “I’m fine” would make it seem like you could have been physically hurt.
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