Talk:I'm good

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

I was wanting to make an entry for the expression I'm good when used to indicate no as an answer, or to indicate that the person has enough of something. Examples would be: Do you want cake? with a reply I'm good meaning no, or at least no more. But what I am unsure of is what part of speech would it be listed as.

Secondly, I always think of this term as being American, but is it limited to certain places in the US?--Dmol 09:53, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The POS should be the same as analogous expressions like "no thanks", which we currently have as a "Phrase". (I would have been inclined to call it an interjection, but "phrase" is hard to dispute.) I don't think it is regionally limited, but I think it is fairly recent in common use; I don't recall hearing it growing up in the 80s-90s.

In fact, the earliest pertinent match for "No thanks I'm good" on b.g.c. is from 2000. [1] The earliest match for "No I'm good thanks" is 1998. [2] The phrase has got to be somewhat older than that, but perhaps not by much; it certainly doesn't seem to have had much traction until 2002 or so. -- Visviva 12:47, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard' I'm good used in this way, but the much older I'm fine is still used with the above meaning in parts of the UK. Should we have an entry for this?
We do now hear the imported phrase I'm good, thanks used in the UK to replace I'm fine, thank you and I'm well, thank you. Dbfirs 13:18, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The earliest newspaper reference on NewsBank is an article by one Nathan Bierma writing for the Chicago Tribune, entitled "'I'm good' not a bad way to send several messages", dated 17 August 2005. Among other observations, he has this to offer:

"In online [language] usage forums, it's been suggested that the expression derives from draw poker -- a player who stands pat, or doesn't need to draw any cards, will tell the dealer, 'I'm good ,'" says Benjamin Zimmer, lecturer in anthropology at Rutgers University and a consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary. "Of course, it has also long been a formulaic expression in bars, where 'I'm good' is a standard negative response to a bartender who asks if the patron wants another drink."'

- Pingku 13:58, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The bar derivation seems plausible. On further examination, I find a few b.g.c. breadcrumbs going back to this one in 1991, which does occur in an alcoholic (though non-bar) setting. -- Visviva 14:27, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Anecdotally, I almost never heard this phrase growing up in the 80s-90s either, and I recall it sounding a bit strange and "hip" to my ears in the early 2000s. Now it seems to be the dominant, standard response when asked whether one needs anything, especially from a waiter or store clerk or similar. I don't recall a similar such meteoric rise in a conversational phrase like this, but Google Books N-grams suggests the phenomenon is a bit more subdued in print: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+%27m+good&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3 . That data set ends in 2008 though, is there a better source with more recent statistics? --Kenahoo (talk) 15:26, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Anecdotally, I was pretty sure I started hearing this phrase some time in the 90s, and I naturally assumed it had derived from the phrase popularized by rappers, "It's all good".

So why has the entry not been created yet?--Dixtosa (talk) 15:50, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

@ User:Dixtosa Now it has...finally. Philmonte101 (talk) 22:04, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Earliest usages

Since we aim to be encyclopedic, why don't we add the earliest usages of this phrase to mean "no, thank you," since our readers will surely expect to find this basic information in this entry? 76.190.213.189 05:39, 31 December 2023 (UTC)