"Well" does not serve any grammatical usage in this sentence. That's because, in this context, "well" is an interjection, a word that expresses emotion. Depending on how it is enunciated, "well" could indicate impatience, surprise, nervousness, and a variety of other emotions.
However, here it seems to function as a filler, similar to "uh." It doesn't have any true meaning. People type it for the same reason as they type the interjections "oh" or "uh" - to convey emotion or to fill space while thinking of what to say.
Answer from Grace on Stack Exchange"Well" does not serve any grammatical usage in this sentence. That's because, in this context, "well" is an interjection, a word that expresses emotion. Depending on how it is enunciated, "well" could indicate impatience, surprise, nervousness, and a variety of other emotions.
However, here it seems to function as a filler, similar to "uh." It doesn't have any true meaning. People type it for the same reason as they type the interjections "oh" or "uh" - to convey emotion or to fill space while thinking of what to say.
1) A pause while the speaker considers a politic answer.
Q: "What did you think of my sister's cooking?" A: "Well ... it was very filling."
2) An indication that the rest of the answer is going to be a mix of positive and negative. See your own example.
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What is a synonym for well?
What is a synonym for good?
Is it “going good” or “going well”?
From my recollection, "good" is an adjective and "well" is an adverb. I recall adjectives modifying/ qualifying nouns and adverbs modifying/qualifying verbs.
If this is correct, why do people say "I am well"? Is there a rule I am forgetting?
I was thinking that if we are looking to qualify the subject "I", then we could satisfy that with either "good" or "well".
If we chose "good", we would say "I am good" .
This would be consistent with other examples where the adjective is at the end of the sentence (e.g. "I am happy.")
If we chose "well", we would say "I am doing well" .
This would be consistent with other examples where a present tense verb preceeds the adverb.
(e.g. "I am happy.")
Unless I am unaware of some rule, I can't see how it is grammatically correct way to say "I am well".
Hopefully someone can clarify the rules for me.
Thr Jamaican use of "well" (meaning very), is starting to be used by lots more young British, (mostly Londoners). But don't use the expression if you don't want to be ridiculed like the adults in the TV series, Absolutely Fabulous. You'd need to be young, British or Caribbean, extremely cool and know more Rastafarian/London street-talk, and use the right accent before you speak like this:
In sahf London, you may well hear someone say: "She's well fit."
This would not refer to her state of health.
from http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbradio4/html/NF2766781?thread=6898274
[FWIW, "fit" means attractive, sexy]
OTOH,
"Your shot was well long of the hole." "He fell well short of his goals." "She's a well fed woman."
are all used in Standard English.
It definitely has a use outside the dialectal: "well beyond", "well away", "well nigh". All the examples I can think of seem to be either about location, or (in the case of "well nigh") words that mean location but have other (figurative?) meanings too.
Others have covered its dialectal use quite, umm, well.
As to its part of speech: I believe that when a word modifies an adjective, it's classed as an adverb, although I've never quite understood that. (My guess is that it's because the use of words as adjective-modifiers and verb-modifiers almost always coincides, although there are exceptions, like "very"!)