“We see us next week, Dave!” You can’t say it like that, can you? Now I’ve got your full attention, I wanted to point out a typical Denglischism, which then leads me onto the actual theme of today – ‘the language of goodbye’. Back to the ‘We see us next week’ should, of course, be ‘See you next week’
It occurred to me the other day while I was looking through my old posts that I wrote about ‘the language of greeting’, but it somehow never dawned on me to talk about ‘saying goodbye’.
So here goes! Let’s get the easy stuff out the way first, you all know: ‘(Good)Bye’; ‘see you (later)’ or the short form ‘C U’; ‘take care/it easy’. Maybe you’ve come across ‘cheers’; (informal especially in mails/phone calls); ‘cheerio’; ‘catch you/ya later’.
Have you ever heard the following typical British-isms? ‘tarah’; ‘tata’ (for now aka TTFN); ‘toodle-oo or toodle-pip’ (more old fashioned)?
And finally, if you won’t see somebody for a long time (or even ever again), we say ‘bid somebody farewell/goodbye’ or ‘say farewell/goodbye to somebody’. Often a farewell/goodbye celebration/party/do (colloquial)/bash (slang) is organised to do just that, say “Farewell!”.
Conversely, you may never want to see a person again, you can also say ‘good riddance’. Now all that remains for me is to bid you a wonderful weekend with my favourite goodbye-ism: toodle-pip! – please, spread the word.
to point out (hier: aufzeigen), to occur to sb (jdm auffallen), greeting (Begrüßung), to dawn on sb (jdm dämmern), to bid/say sb farewell/goodbye to sb (jdm Lebewohl sagen), celebration/party/do (colloquial)/bash (slang) (Feier), Farewell (Lebe wohl), conversely (im Gegenzug), good riddance (und tschüss)
„Good riddance“ – very important! Well, some people leave a gap, others give way. 😉