Heard in Missouri: "but good!"

[Doug Harris]

It's highly unlikely the bear -- or b'ar -- would agree with that
description of his/her demise.
(And "when he was only three" seems, grammatically, to be referring
to the critter, not the critter-conquerer. That seems more likely
than the song writer's  version, unless disbelief isn't simply
suspended, but cast, in toto, aside.
(the other) doug
-------------------
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

>
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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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