Bogoyvalenskiy, D

[Jon Machtynger]

> The adverbial use of "good" in the States may have begun as a dialect
> variant, but it is now simply idiomatic in certain phrases:  "You did
> good," and after "How are you?" "I'm good, how are you?"  But hasn't the
> same change occurred with German "gut"?  Isn't "wohl" reserved mainly for
> idioms like "Leb wohl"?  Such regularization is not unusual; adverbial -ly
> is also falling away in many dialects:  "Go slow," "Do you say this different?"

I don't think that "you did good" uses good as an adverb, rather a noun, as
in "let's do some good".  The fact that people may consider this in an
adverbial sense is probably a misunderstanding.

Also from a German perspective, I think the context is understood to the
native speaker.  I'm no native speaker, but I believe that answering 'gut'
would be implicitly considered "mir geht's gut" (i.e. goes well with me).

Wohl would be different from gut (just as well is different from good) e.g. ich
fuhle mich wohl.

Jon

> >At 18:06 13.08.2001 +0100, you wrote:
> > >Don't Americans say "I did good" - I hear them say in response to
> > >"how are you"  = "Good" and it is creeping into British english too,
> > >replacing "well".  I've heard anecodatlly bestest, betterest amd
> > >gooder but never goodest..
> > >Annette
> > >
> >
> >Thank you for this -- I never heard that. This might make it more plausible
> >that those using "I did better" are somehow aware of the relationship to "I
> >did good".
> >Of course, understanding "well" really well involves understanding the
> >relationship of the adverb to the adjective. Could it be that the
> >increasing usage of the adjective rather than the adverb is due to a
> >certain uneasiness with this irregularity? Maybe, for speakers, "well" is
> >somehow too remote from "good" to be used with the same ease (in contexts
> >where something "good" is to be expressed), so they increasingly prefer
> >"good"?! (I'm not too familiar with the mechanisms of language change --
> >I'm just speculating!)
> >- Thora
> >
> >
> >
> >http://www.spatial-cognition.de
> >
> >
> >---------------------------------------------
> >
> >Thora Tenbrink
> >Spatial Cognition Priority Program & WSV
> >Universitaet Hamburg
> >FB Informatik
> >Vogt-Koelln-Str. 30
> >D-22527 Hamburg
> >
> >Tel.: +49/*40/42883-2382
> >Fax:  +49/*40/42883-2385
> >e-mail: tenbrink at informatik.uni-hamburg.de
> >http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WSV/hp/tenbrink-english.htm
>
>
> _____________________________________________
> Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
> Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
> Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
> http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm
>