• ElectricMachman@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    10·
    1 month ago

    I’ve always been curious how people greeted each other before “hello”. Did we just say “good day” and variations thereof?

    • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      Well, Howdy is a contraction of “How do you do?”, hence the somewhat rarer “Howdy do!”, and Goodbye is a contraction of “God Be With You!”

      • ElectricMachman@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        I didn’t know that about ‘goodbye’! Words are fascinating, huh.

        I believe “hello” itself was more of an exclamation (like “hi”, in fact) and supposedly comes from the Dutch “hollo”. Some people in the UK still use it as such, in fact.

        • root_beer@midwest.socialEnglish
          3·
          1 month ago

          Adios and adieu also both refer to god; I’m sure other Romance languages say goodbye similarly but I don’t know Italian or Romanian or whatever