Syntactic Contamination
One increasingly hears in the mass media the phrase good-paying job, which goes against the traditionally normative well-paying job. What may seem like yet another overextension of the adjective good at the expense of well (as in I’m good instead of normative I’m well––in response to How are you?) is actually a case of syntactic contamination, whereby two syntactic constructions that share constituents and a semantic core are confused.
The compound adjective well-paying in well-paying job is the result of transforming the phrase This job pays well. This traditional construction is contaminated by the phrase good job, yielding good-paying job, even though there is no comparable construction *This job pays good.
Ultimately, the rise of such catachrestic constructions is to be explained as part of the decline of traditional language norms grounded in a knowledge of written English.
MICHAEL SHAPIRO