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

[Jerome Foster]

For better or worse Americans still try doing good. That's why they're
called "do-gooders."



----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Glaser" <tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 4:20 PM
Subject: Re: prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less


> >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
>
>