I run into this saying every now and then in Am-English (esp south).
This phrasing, with its curios choice of grammar, does anyone know the origins?
I’m curious as well. I’ve always taken it to mean that “he’s of/from good people”, that is to say, his parents are rich/doctors/decent/élite. But that explanation feels lacklustre, since it’s typically the lower classes that truncate phrases in that manner.
It might also be a holdover from another language, like German or Italian, where the sentence structure is different.
I’ve always heard it used to mean the person is of good character not from “good stock”.
I hear it a lot around here and it definitely refers to a person’s character. When I hear my friends use it about someone, it’s a pretty strong compliment.
That’s how I’ve always understood it. He is of good moral character and comes from a family that instills those values in their children. In other words, he is truthful, keeps his promises, is a hard worker, etc.
Not just American English.
“Still elves they were and remain, and that is Good People”
J. R.R. Tolkein
“The Hobbit”
I agree with the above (except the Hobbit thing… I have no opinion on that). In the circles I run in, we usually say “X is a good shit” or something similar.
Maybe (HUGE extrapolation) there’s a connection to the multi-personed deity concept. Wicked huge extrapolation… fed by too much Rambo-watching and booze.
Just adding another voice to the choir that it means that the subject is of good character. My experience has been that it seems to be more prevalent in the south.
English major checking in. Sure, it’s bad grammar, but harmless. I’ve heard it from folks in Pa., too. It’s fun to speak “wrong” sometimes, and it gets captured into the lexicon.
It means the person so described is a stand up kind of guy; a person who will have your back when there is trouble brewing. Very similar to “He’s a good old boy.”
He is [one of the] Good People – the individuals, taken as a group, that are high in the esteem of the speaker, usually for humanistic reasons: kindly, compassionate, upright, thoughtful…
I’ve always associated it with the New Jersey / Italian-American area of slang. Meaning of good character or raised well/from a good family, not having any ethnic insinuations.
Yeah pretty much this, but at this point I think it’s it really is cross cultural across wide swaths of the US. Having said this, it is more of working class thing than something white collar or professionals say.
OK! I think we can all agree that it the saying refers to a person of good character.
But does anyone know the story/explanation behind this saying?? its etymology if you want. That was the question in the OP.
Here’s the only webpage I’ve been able to find in which the term “good people” is discussed:
My feeling is that it’s vaguely working-class and vaguely Southern, but it is used occasionally throughout the U.S.
I don’t think there’s any particularly deep reason for the term developing in that way. To begin with, “they are good people” became the standard way to say, “These are people we can trust.” It became more than just a way to praise some group of people as being good in a moral or any other sense. It meant that they are part of our in-group, part of the group that we feel a bond with. I can imagine a working-class Southerner saying this is defence of a group of people that he knows. He would be saying that these people may not be rich (or even middle class) and they might be from an area that others may think of as being out in the middle of nowhere, but they are part of his own set of peers and can be trusted.
Because of this, the term “good people” began to be thought of as an adjective. Saying “they are good people” was like saying “they are trustworthy” or “they are honorable.” If the term is thought of as an adjective and not as a noun phrase, it would make sense then to say, “He is good people” when talking about a single person.
Regardless of the reference to and what “good people” refer…it is grammatically incorrect.
It should be: “He is from good people.”
Saying that it is grammatically incorrect is useless as a reply to the OP. No one disputes the fact that it’s not standard English grammar and that you would be unlikely to find it in print except as an attempt to mimic a colloquial expression. The question was how it developed as a common expression in spoken American English, particularly in certain dialects.
Incidentally, I don’t think that “he is from good people” is a good translation of “he is good people.” “He is from good people” means that his relations (or perhaps his neighbors) are trustworthy. “He is good people” means that he himself is trustworthy.
The sentence that Blake gives above from The Hobbit comes from the chapter called “Flies and Spiders.” It isn’t really the same meaning as the expression we’re discussing in this thread. It’s saying that elves are not evil and are not the villains of the story. The expression “good people” as used in the cases given in this thread are saying that a person or a group of persons are part of our in-group, our peers, and they can be trusted.
I would say, in Southern vernacular, that the term has specific meaning: The person is a good person. It doesn’t mean his or her family or his associates are necessarily good, it means that specific person is a good person judged on personal experience.
It’s fairly common in Texas and most everyone knows what you mean.