Rex Trulove
Some English words and phrases have been in use for such a long time that most people have long since forgotten where they came from. This is the case of “goodbye”, despite the fact that the word is so very commonly used today. Knowing how the word came into being gives the term extra meaning that many people might find fascinating.
In the 1500’s and earlier, a phrase was used when people would take leave of one another. The phrase was “God be with ye”. We would say ‘God be with you’ today. The phrase was a parting prayer, though a brief one.
As with many phrases that are that old, the term was later abbreviated to “God b’wi ye”. By the end of the 1600’s, the phrase was abbreviated even more and became “God b’ye” or sometimes ‘Godbuy’. Still later, “good” was substituted for “God” in the phrase. This was most likely because of similar terms that were in use at the time, such as “good night”.
Today, we are left with goodbye or good-bye. The hyphen is still acceptable, though it doesn’t need to be used. The apostrophes that were originally used to signify the abbreviations have been lost through time.
Thus, when one person says ‘goodbye’ to another person, they are offering a parting prayer; May God be with you. How many people do you suppose realize that they are saying a prayer everytime they say goodbye? Be honest; did you know it?
I must say that I love word and phrase origins as interesting as this one, though it is surprisingly simple. This research was spurred by a friend who is a pastor and missionary.
That is an interesting history of the origin of the word
Very interesting. I love origin of words and I learned something new via your post.
That is great to hear!
I’m happy and thankful that you enjoyed it!
That was such an interesting topic. Thank you for posting it 🙂
I’m happy and thankful that you enjoyed it!
very good photo awesome interesteng
Thank you for the compliments!
I’ve always said the word “goodbye” knowing the only meaning that I knew, this one added to my vocabulary. ^_^
I’m very glad to hear that!
I have already heard about the origins of “Good Bye” but I didn’t know the all story 🙂
The story is pretty interesting, isn’t it?
I knew the information already, but it’s refreshing to see it presented so clearly. Thanks for this article!
Aww…thank you for the compliment!
I really like articles like this. Good job.
Thank you, Gary. I’m glad you like it.
This is so interesting. It’s such a lovely phrase, I think it is very sad that everybody is using the word without realizing the true meaning.
True, but I can’t help but wonder how many people would stop using it if they knew that it was a prayer. :))
Very good post. Its a very nice picture and also a good style.
Thank you for the compliments. I appreciate them.
Thank you for sharing the history of the word goodbye.
You are quite welcome!
I had heard this before. Very interesting post. I am always fascinated by the origins of words as well.
It fascinates me, especially considering that common current meanings are often shallow as compared to the original meaning.
Back then people also used to swear by god’s wounds and even more amusingly by his beard…
There were quite a few things that were common then that would no doubt leave most of us simply shaking our heads in wonder.
To be fair, they’d be shaking their heads at most of what we do
There is a lot of truth in that.
But one of us is supposed to know better…
I vaguely recall someone telling me this. But I’m glad you brought it back to my recollection again. I like where the term originated from.
That is something I really like as well. Finding those origins strengthens the use of words. That is a good thing, especially for a writer. :))
It is very fascinated post. I would like to see more of those, for I am very interested both in meaning of words and their origin. Morphology was my favorite subject 🙂
I imagine that I will be making more posts like this one, in the future. :))
Very interesting post. I also like sometimes to search the origins of the spoken words, even though in my line of work (translation and writing) and my old line of of work (nursing), the origins that I research the most are geared towards the medical and or nursing type words.
There is nothing at all wrong with looking at the origins of nursing terms. I even enjoy finding out the origins of common idioms and slang.
I’ve known this for a long time, but I’m an English major. Today most Americans seem to abbreviate it still further to simply “Bye!” Guess that goes with the current trend of ignoring God and leaving him out of social interaction.
True. I mentioned that I got the idea to write about this from a friend who is a pastor and missionary. What I didn’t mention is that he and his family are missionaries in Japan. There are a huge number of Buddhists there, but few Christians, with the result that most people have not even heard the good word of God. However, the people there who speak English, and that is a large segment of the population, know what goodbye means and where it came from, so they purposely use the term, bye-bye.
Interesting fact. Thanks for sharing. And m sharing this to my FB. 🙂
Thank you. That is very kind of you.
Very interesting! This adds to the knowledge. Language; words are always evolving indeed
Very true. The English language is evolving in another way, too. More and more words are added officially to the language which come from other languages.
Words are interesting and can often be confusing.
Yes, they can be confusing even to native English speakers. It is hard to imagine how difficult it can be who are ESL speakers.