Sp bien/bueno (was:prescriptivism, conventions, irony,and could(n't) care less

[Donald M. Lance]

Paul Frank wrote:

> The distinction I make between I'm good and I'm well is that to me I'm good
> means that I'm feeling okay about things in general and I'm well means that
> I am in good health. But maybe I've been wrong about this all along.

That whole complex of good / well -- better -- best has a long history.  The comparative
and superlative are the same for these two words -- and are suppletive forms that
developed, I think, in Middle English.
The "adverbial" use of 'good' and 'well' goes back to OE instrumental case of adjectives.

What kind of person is he?  -- Good.
What kind of person is he?  -- Sick. (not the physical-health meaning)
How are you? (... doing/feeling)?  -- Good.
How are you? (... doing/feeling)?  -- Sick.
Note that we could add -ly to the second "sick" but not to the first one.
And that we could not add -ly to either "good" and have the same meaning.

What part(s) of speech these words ARE is not simple.
The two uses of the words "good" and "sick" in these two pairs of sentences do not have
exactly the same meanings.  Are they the same word?  In the first of each pair, we have a
clear "predicate adjective," but in the second one we have something like the old
instrumental adjective qua flat manner adverb.  (flat -- without -ly)

I can't remember the early source of 'well' and do not have the motivation to look it up
now.  It seems to fit into this paradigm only because of English usage since 1500 or so.
It messes up some nice little pat answers, but one should make attempts at least
occasionally to bring the history of the language into analyses of current usage.

DMLance