Don't get me wrong, I mean to describe my well-being, not my altruistic acts. To be honest, I'm not really doing anything all too amazingly selfless, I'm just feelin' alright. However, I wonder what you thought when you read the title of this post.
To me, to say "I'm doing good" is to describe some act or continuous mission you're participating in that involves what could be considered as "good" work. However, it dawned on me today as I was watching the tele that this phrase, although gramatically incorrect, has become a verbally acceptable response to the question "how are you?". I don't know when it happened, I don't know why, but it's strange to think that something such as an error in grammar can be so frequently used and so rarely corrected that it can become the social norm above the correct response. This lead me to question whether or not it can be deemed correct?
See, to be correct or true or whatever else is mostly a matter of subjective interpretation in this case. It's as though we are so ignorant with the response and the difference between well and good that we become indifferent and opt to use them interchangibly. Although, objectively the word good is an adjective and well is an adverb, and any mix up in application would be an error, if society accepts good as well and allows that they be used interchangibly in this example, it's odd to wonder whether or not it is actually acceptable.
Just a rant, scattered and incoherent, but in it lies some valuably inquiry. Good day.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
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There are some who say that the greatest evil visited upon the English language was the English dictionary. I wouldn't necessarily call myself one of them, of course, but you can see the point. What made English what it is today was the ability to grow and expand at a completely liberal pace. Shakespeare, for example, literally invented so many words and expressions that we use dozens of times a day...precisely because he wrote before there was a dictionary. Taking words from other languages, transforming nouns into verbs and back again, playing around with what you can say, all of this is the essence of a living tongue. As society and culture changes, its language must change with it.
ReplyDeleteBut if you think about it, this is also rather sad. Because today's great works of literature will be tomorrow's incomprehensible gibberish. English has long lost "Beowulf", has all but lost "The Canterbury Tales", and may soon begin the process of getting rid of Shakespeare's plays and poems (and some upstart high schoolers would say it's already begun!). I sometimes wonder, while watching "Star Trek", why on earth they're speaking modern English. Surely they should be speaking some sort of future English...?
Nice thought Steve, as always.
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