The Alpkit newsletter which arrived last week uses the slogan Go nice places, do good things. That reminds me of an entry on a linguistic blog (might have been Language Log) about the phrase 'go bush'. I'd always interpreted this phrase as an idiom meaning something like 'live in the wilds' but they'd found a sentence where it clearly meant 'go to the uninhabited wild area'. This, they claimed, was the only instance other than home of go + noun without to in the sense of physical movement. But 'go places' can refer to visiting geographical places as well as being a metaphor.
So what's the link between home, places and bush that makes them different from other nouns in this construction? Perhaps it's that they refer to physical locations which are also emblematic of a wider idea. It's been claimed by some that 'home' is an idea unique to the English language, I doubt that very much, but I can't think of an equivalent in another language which works in the same way, being understood at once as a specific place but also a universal idea. The French chez and Slavonic u both need a specified person while the German zu Hause uses an actual building. Of course, that's not even scratching the surface of all the languages there must be in the world. Getting back to English, if that is the link then why can't we say 'go work'?
