Good night, good evening
What do you say to people when you leave work? Good night or good evening?
A co-worker told me today that good night is supposed to be said after 8pm. Technically, it was still evening, so I should say “good evening”. I turned the phrase over in my head and repeated it aloud but it just felt wrong. I’d say it as a greeting, maybe, but usually never as a farewell. There’s proper usage and all, sure, but language changes. Rules that once applied start to become lax, and sometimes they start to not apply at all. It’s kind of like “can I?” and “may I?” - one is more correct when you’re asking permission to do something, but you rarely hear the average person say, “May I borrow your softball so that I may throw it at someone?” (or something to that effect)
So yes, “even if it’s wrong”, I’m still going to say good night when departing. Call me stubborn.
Good night!
Posted in Thoughts
August 17th, 2007 at 1:30 am
Hrm…an interesting thing about language is that it adapts to common usage. It may have been proper to say ‘good evening’ to somebody as a farewell (itself a bastardization of ‘fare thee well’) many years ago but I think that saying ‘good night’ is more proper in these, what we refer to as, modern times. That being said, I generally try to ride the line of neutrality by saying something like “have a good one,” thus leaving the interpretation of the nicety up to the recipient of said nicety. I don’t know if this is right or wrong but I was a waiter for several years and discovered that neutral statements put more dollars in my pocket than phrases that could be misinterpreted…
August 17th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
It’s like writing fiction or other forms of lying. Let the receiver of the communication do more of the work and they’ll be more happy with hat they think you’re saying.
August 19th, 2007 at 12:46 am
Drew: Common usage - that’s the term I was looking for. I like neutrality v.much but I’m still gonna say what feels right to me in this case. I get what you’re saying about phrases being misinterpreted though. I say TONS of things that can be misinterpreted. :p
Shannon: So you mean I should be as vague and neutral as possible so that they can interpret as they wish? That’s an interesting art that I think I’d like to learn! I already know some people like that. Just gotta mimic them. (Maybe they’ll get annoyed in the process too. Bonus!)