In Reply to: Re: Well paying jobs posted by David FG on January 25, 2010 at 10:22:
: : : : The American Petroleum Institute (API) has a series of television ads where the spokesperson talks about "well paying jobs." See http://www.api.org/aboutapi/ads/ To my ear that phrase sounds incorrect. "Good paying jobs" sounds correct. Recently U.S. President Obama used "well paying jobs" in a televised speech. Anyone have any comments?
: : : Neither sounds quite right to me. I would say 'well-paid jobs'.
: : : DFG
: : To a grammar stickler, "good paying jobs" can only be good jobs that also happen to pay (unlike good non-paying jobs) since good is an adjective it must modify jobs and not paying. Well-paid jobs sound like they're over and done with to me. I did the job and was well paid. Now what am I going to do next week?
: I see your point, but 'well-paid jobs' is firmly idiomatic, I think.
: 'There are still well-paid jobs to be had in the banking sector' would be, in my opinion, a perfectly unexceptionable sentence and one that would be familiar to most Eastpondians at least.
: DFG
["Well paying jobs" comes about because speakers are trying to avoid the awkward manoeuvre of inserting "jobs that pay well" into a sentence. I note with a sigh that sentences on the topic of the availability of jobs come with a great array of hedges and qualifications. Spokespersons (or their ghostwriters) lack the patience to fuss with a lot of clauses in "that" or "which" : thus, "well paying jobs" and other compressed jargon. - Bac.]