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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007Good morning as greeting words
I understand the greeting phrase "Happy New Year" means "I wish you a Happy New year." rather than "Have a Happy New Year." In this connection, can someone tell me whether "Good morning!" means that "I wish you a good morning or that "Have a good morning." or something else like "May you have a good morning."? > I understand the greeting phrase "Happy New Year" means "I wish > you a Happy New year." rather than "Have a Happy New Year." But they mean the same. They are all alternative formulations of the same idea. > In this connection, can someone tell me whether "Good morning!" means > that "I wish you a good morning or that "Have a good morning." or > something else like "May you have a good morning."? Again, they all mean the same thing. "I hope you have a good morning". (Often the speaker doesn't give a damn, but is being conventionally polite) >I understand the greeting phrase "Happy New Year" means "I wish > you a Happy New year." rather than "Have a Happy New Year." In > this connection, can someone tell me whether "Good morning!" means > that "I wish you a good morning or that "Have a good morning." or > something else like "May you have a good morning."? Happy new year means either '"I wish you a happy new year", or "Have a happy new year". Good morning is a modern abbreviated form of "May you have a good morning" or similar, so can mean any of the examples you give. > can someone tell me whether "Good morning!" means > that "I wish you a good morning or that "Have a good morning." or > something else like "May you have a good morning."? No. These conventional greetings have by now been reduced to their functional essentials (or essential function) i.e. need no longer be semantically explicated. For example Goodbye used to be God be with you: but nowadays Goodbye is simply the formulaic greeting, and is not understood to have any reference to any deity (cf. also French Adieu.)  SignatureDon Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) > I understand the greeting phrase "Happy New Year" means "I wish > you a Happy New year." rather than "Have a Happy New Year." In > this connection, can someone tell me whether "Good morning!" means > that "I wish you a good morning or that "Have a good morning." or > something else like "May you have a good morning."? As others have said, these distinctions are not entirely clear or meaningful. The important thing about greetings is to learn when to use them and how to respond them. In some cases, taking them literally is a bad thing. "How do you do?" for example is not really a question. SignatureLars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> <http://myspace.com/larseighner> War On Terrorism: Joe McCarthy Brigade "The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead -- and may well mount a fifth column." Andrew Sullivan, _The New Republic_ > this connection, can someone tell me whether "Good morning!" means > that "I wish you a good morning or that "Have a good morning." or > something else like "May you have a good morning."? "I wish you a good morning" and "Have a good morning." and "May you have a good morning" all have the same meaning; they're different ways of saming the same thing. "Good morning" is a short way of saying any of the above three. SignaturePosted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com The Peacenik entity posted thusly: >> this connection, can someone tell me whether "Good morning!" means >> that "I wish you a good morning or that "Have a good morning." or [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > >"Good morning" is a short way of saying any of the above three. As is G'morning or 'morning or 'mornin', where I am. > The Peacenik entity posted thusly: > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > As is G'morning or 'morning or 'mornin', where I am. I've heard "Muy buenos días, que le dé Diós" in rural México; ~"That God give you very good days" if I recall correctly. SignatureFrank ess > I've heard "Muy buenos días, que le dé Diós" in rural México; > ~"That God give you very good days" if I recall correctly. Which I'd think might itself be short for something like Ojalá que Diós le dé muy buenos días SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |"You can't prove it *isn't* so!" is 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |as good as Q.E.D. in folk logic--as Palo Alto, CA 94304 |though it were necessary to submit |a piece of the moon to chemical kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |analysis before you could be sure (650)857-7572 |that it was not made of green |cheese. http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | Bergen Evans |
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