As we enter another round of threatened teacher strikes, it would probably be more to their credit if, before they ask for more money, that they first of all endeavour to perfect their craft.
At the CWOSSA Cross Country Championships in Townsend on October 26, I heard several teacher-coaches praise their charges by telling them how good they had done in their just-completed race. For the last four races, I was stationed at the top of a muddy hill 500m from the finish, and once again, I heard coaches encourage their runners by telling them how good they were doing. Presumably, all of these coaches came through our various educational systems, from elementary to university on to teacher’s colleges, but were never corrected in regard to a too-commonplace grammatical error.
The word “good” is used in what is called “the Nominative case”, associating itself to nouns, such as “Sue is a good artist”. Those who took a subject called “grammar”, rather than “Language Skills”, can probably tell you that “good” is an adjective describing the noun “artist”.
When you are referring to an action, such as running, the word is “well”, which is an adverb associating itself to the verb. Continuing my sentence from the previous paragraph, an example would be “Sue is a good artist, and draws very well.” One of the few times that good can be used after a verb would be in a statement such as “Mother Teresa did good” (as in good work). In that sentence, it becomes what is called a “subjective completion”, and refers not to the verb, but to the subject.
The use of good in the context of an adverb can often be attributed to laziness. “Good” is little more that a grunt from the throat. To say “well”, however, requires the manipulation of the facial muscles and tongue, and considerably more energy, as well as mental acuity. At one time, I could tell which school board they were part of by that one indication; the Public Board was the first to fall by the wayside. But gradually, the Separate Board followed suit. The independent system is the last holdout, but I’ve unfortunately witnessed its use creeping in at individual locations.
Hopefully, this letter gets passed on to the many teachers in Haldimand County, and next spring we’ll have the county coaches telling their young athletes how “well” they are doing.
Bruce Burton,
Canfield
