prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less

[Tony Glaser]

>Now, when I say "you done
>good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly encouragement as well
>as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment.  Now,this is
>not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is a
>difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning involved when
>one says "you did/done good" and "you did well".  Or am I living in an
>idiolectal fantasyland?

As an Englishperson living in USland, for the me difference is not
the humor or otherwise, it is the loss of the difference between
"doing well" and "doing good". "Doing good" has a meaning beyond a
light-hearted way of telling someone they did well - if I go out and
save a person from starving/dying/being wrongfully convicted  or
whatever, _then_ I have "done good" (even though perhaps I may not
have done well!). In US English it seems that this use of "doing
good" as in "doing good works" has been lost. Just as the specific
meaning of "momentarily" has been lost (every time a US airline pilot
announces that we will be landing momentarily, I always have to stop
myself from asking how we will have time to disembark - oops, sorry,
deplane).

Tony Glaser