Heard in Missouri: "but good!"

[Dennis Preston]

And in at least mock-hillbilly "He hurt him bad good."

dInIs

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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject:      Re: Heard in Missouri: "but good!"
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>But he hurt 'im bad.
>
>   JL
>
>Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
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>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Laurence Horn
>Subject: Re: Heard in Missouri: "but good!"
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>At 6:08 PM -0800 12/19/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>OED has David Crockett killing a bear "good" in 1834 (_good_, ...adv. B.).
>>
>>  JL
>
>And we have independent evidence that he also kilt him a b'ar when he
>was only three, which would have been in 1789 or thenabouts. But the
>historical record doesn't show whether or not he kilt that one good.
>
>LH
>
>>
>>
>>"Arnold M. Zwicky" wrote:
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>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky"
>>Subject: Re: Heard in Missouri: "but good!"
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>On Dec 19, 2007, at 3:33 PM, David Donnell wrote:
>>
>>>  Pardon my asking: by "opaque idiom" what do you mean?
>>
>>all idoms are to some extend semantically opaque. these ("but good",
>>"and how") are especially so: knowing the meanings of the words
>>wouldn't help you at all in figuring out their meaning/use.
>>
>>>  I reckon you mean there is no literal sense to either idiom... (If
>>>  so, I agree with you. Otherwise, please correct me.)
>>
>>yup.
>>
>>>  Also, below you say it's "general american. colloquial, but
>>>  widespread."
>>>
>>>  Don't you find the expression a wee bit anachronistic? I mean, can
>>>  you imagine any young adult using it nowdays? Just curious.
>>
>>you might be right; this is something someone could look at. but
>>there seems to be (or have been) nothing particularly regional about it.
>>
>>>  Note: I don't have enough info to circumscribe usage of the
>>>  expression--didn't mean to suggest it is regional. I simply reported
>>>  the identity & location of the person using the expression. (My dear
>>>  old ma.)
>>
>>i realize that this cuts both ways. if you don't give the details, we
>>don't know how to situate the report. but whatever details you give,
>>we'll take to be possibly relevant to the report.
>>
>>i picked up on the possibly regional part, because others did. my
>>apologies.
>>
>>arnold
>>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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