debate on "you did good"

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>Right.  But the standard answer to "How are you?" wasn't "I'm well," it was
>"Fine," or "Fine, thank you."  And that seems to have disappeared.

Not in my experience. I moved from Madison WI to Pittsburgh PA in 1989. One
of the language changes which I noted was this one.

The standard answer (it seemed to me) in WI was indeed "Fine" ... also "OK"
etc. were frequent. In Pittsburgh I heard almost exclusively "Good". The
question BTW in both places was more often "How [are] you doing?" than "how
are you?", I think.

Maybe WI has tended to "Good" since then (of course it was not unknown
there then) ... but I tend to doubt Pittsburgh's general linguistic radicalism.

"Fine" sounds good to me, and I'm still young.

-- Doug Wilson