Good and...

[Gerald Cohen]

>At 12:17 AM -0700 5/17/03, Rudolph C Troike wrote:
>         This is a question that has probably been dealt with before on the
>list, but whether or not, it would be helpful to get some information on
>it. A friend relayed to me a question as to
>
>         (1) the origins of expressions such as "good and mad", "good and
>tired", "nice and easy", "nice and slow", where the seemingly compounded
>adjectives "good and" and "nice and" lack their usual (literal) lexical
>meaning, and function as intensifiers comparable to "very"; and
>
>         (2) the position of these within the structure of the Adjective
>Phrase (thinking in terms of a Chomskyan tree of some recent vintage).
>
>         Any ideas on either question will be appreciated.



Here's a reference:
   Gerald Leonard Cohen: "Change of Meaning in Context," in: _Forum
Linguisticum_, vol. 2, no. 3, April 1978, pp.255-266.

    The article discusses, among other things, a type of
change-of-meaning-in- context which I have termed "physemy"
(literally: "growth of meaning").  I will illustrate it with the
example: "He plays the violin like a master and can play the violin
as well."
    In this sort of sentence, "as well" has a primary meaning ("as
capably," "in as fine a fashion"), but  it also has a secondary
meaning (i.e., a meaning acquired in context): "also."
    Then, in a dramatic semantic development, the secondary meaning
emerges as the primary one in such sentences as: "He flunked physics
and failed chemistry as well."  In this sentence all semantic
connections of "as well" with "as capably" are lost.

     I point out (p. 257) that the importance of physemy in the
production of idiomaticity should be underscored, and I then present
examples I collected of this feature.  Example #9 (page 258) is:
"Our assistants are good and helpful."
Primary meaning of "good and helpful" here: "good" + "helpful" (i.e.,
the original context was one where both "good" and "helpful" were to
be taken literally.
But the secondary meaning of "good and" in this sort of context is
"very," i.e., our assistants are very helpful.
    This secondary meaning then emerges as the primary one in such
sentences as "I'm good and mad" or "I'm good and tired."  In a
footnote I add: "I once heard the following interesting example:
'I'll go see how it's burnt [i.e., bread in the oven]. Must be good
and bad.'"

Gerald Cohen

P.S. I would not equate examples like "nice and slow" or "nice and
easy" with "good and.." examples (e.g. "good and mad"), since "nice"
here retains its favorable meaning. One cannot say, for example, "I'm
nice and mad" to mean "very mad."