To Be Doing Good or To Be Doing Well?

I've just been online and had a message saying ''I hope you're doing good''. There are so many phrases like this these days that are American and mean different things in UK English.

To do good in UK English means to actively do things that cause a good reaction or benefit somebody. ''She does a lot of good'' would be for somebody like Mother Theresa. There is no object (such as 'you', 'him', 'the world' or whatever) so we don't know exactly who she is doing to good to, but I guess in the context at the time, it was pretty obvious.

''This food will do you good.'' or ''Eating this kind of food won't do you any good.'' Clear, right? This food will or won't be beneficial to you. You can say, of course, what things will ''do you harm'' as well, on the other side of the coin. ''These fats do you a lot of harm whereas these healthy fats will do you good.''

The American ''I hope you're doing good'' is ''I hope you're doing well'' in UK English, an instance of where Americans use the adjective (good) and not the adverb (well).

With this in mind, compare ''He learns real quick!'' by our American cousins to ''He learns really quickly'' over the pond in the UK. (note: we say our 'American cousins over the pond' as there is an obvious link between USA and UK historically and of course linguistically. A pond, in case you didn't know, is a small lake-the kind where frogs live and people sometimes construct artificially in their gardens, so it is with some humor that we refer to the Atlantic ocean as ''the pond'').

And don't get me started on tenses.....''Did you just drop that?'' (USA using the past simple tense) to ''Have you just dropped that?'' (UK using the present perfect tense) It might be easier and as some say ''lazier'' but it is more and more prevalent to cut out a lot of the grammar from English now thanks to, well....our American cousins across the pond!

Nevertheless, I still get die-hard students who ''want to learn proper English'' but who nonetheless become influenced by what they see and hear on TV shows and various other emissions from The States. What is proper English anyway? All languages morph into something else over time.

Our ancestors wouldn't have a clue what we are saying now, regardless of where they were born and raised. Imagine Winston Churchill or George Washington listening in to this from a twenty something year old now: ''Yeah man, she is totally crushing it! She like, owned that whole meeting dude, she really kicked some ass!''

Maybe I'll write a book about it, in good spirits, one day when I have compiled a list long enough to warrant nine hundred and something pages.

Ah well.

Jus' sayin'.

Louise