On the farm we used to throw wheat at each other. We called it 'gluten tag'. /s
"Good Evening" however CAN be a phrase of welcoming.
Showman for an evening performance: "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!"
Ok, Dracula...
Or a concierge :)
Works exactly the same in German.
It probably stems from the same source
I'm surprised nobody hasn't already posted the inevitable: “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
"it is a good morning because the world has been blessed with your special and unique blend of pure awesomeness."
I mean night and day are whole ass parts of the day, so saying Good Those is saying "I hope you have a good whole ass part of the day". Morning and Evening are just the starts of those periods, so saying Good Those is more like "Let's have a good part of the day together". Or maybe I'm just high.
Another thing, "good morning" can be a whole conversation, you can say "good morning" to somebody and then not talk to them anymore. But if you say "good afternoon" or "good evening" I feel like there's an expectation that you have something else to say. Is that just me?
Buenos noches works both ways
It's just the quirkyness of the English language
I'm still trying to figure out why "how come" means "why."
So too does "wherefore". In old English, "where" meant "what" and "fore" meant "for". So "wherefore?" meant "what for?", i.e "for what reason". "Therefore" is the opposite of "wherefore", meaning "that for", i.e. "for that reason"
That one has confused many a teenager reading Romeo and Juliet for the first time because it's not commonly used much anymore apart from some versions of the Bible, and the idiom "Whys and Wherefores". When she says "Wherefore art thou Romeo?", Juliet isn't asking where Romeo is. She's asking "Why are you Romeo?" As in she's lamenting that the boy she met is specifically Romeo, a Montague, a family enemy. She wishes he weren't. Which is why she followed that sentence with "Deny thy father and refuse thy name."
P.S. "how come" means "why" because it's a shortened phrase. It could stand for something like "how did it come about that he died?" Or "how comes it that you know my name?" That is a bit of a mouth full, so people just casually dropped most of it to "how come he died?" and "how come you know my name?"
Proposal with no data: "how [did/does it] come [to be this way]“
Ok genius, bonus round. Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Jk that was a really good breakdown lol.
I know it didn't really want an explanation but you're gonna good and gosh darn get one.
Both words predate cars.
"Parkway" used to always be literal. A way/path through a park. A wide landscaped scenic route through parks for carriages. Those scenic routes eventually became roads with the arrival of cars, often existing beyond parks and even sometimes stretching between cities, but kept the same old timey name.
And driveways weren't just the often car-length bit of pavement where your car sits. They were long private drives, roads that connected a manor home to public roadways across an estate. They were primarily for driving carriages upon between the public roads and the private manor, so the name made more sense. With the advent of cars, homes that weren't on massive estates now needed a paved or gravel path for their cars to travel to a garage nearby or attached to the home. They used the same name despite being far shorter, only needing to cross a more typical yard, requiring little driving.
And while we are on the subject a "park" as in a green space used for conservation and/or recreation and the action, to "park", as in a car, have the same origin. They both come from the French word "parc", which means "an enclosed piece of ground". The origin of the connection for that word and modern public green spaces goes back to medieval royals building fenced-in areas of wild greenery for royals and nobels to hunt in. As for what that has to do with parking a car, it goes back to a military preparations where wagons, weapons and horses would be stored and organized in designated enclosures, "parcs", thus "parking" them for later usage. When cars came about and needed organized storing, the word already existed for such a thing.
I guarantee there's a word nerd that's got that one loaded up, but alas, it is beyond my gift. And I'm certainly not going to look it up, as that would be cheating 😛
i'm hardly a word nerd. but i do recall bits of a class discussion from like junior high english class.
driveways are paths that connected public ways (roads) to private buildings. named for what you did on them.. with the advent of the automobile and garages to put them in, they've become places people often park their cars.. they've just gotten a lot shorter since most houses no longer have acres of farm fields, barns and outbuildings, and what not surrounding them.
parkways are wide, and often landscaped, thoroughfares originally through, you guessed it.. parks. they don't necessarily always go through parks these days but the concept is generally still the same, unless a local government is misusing the term for naming a road. they are also not usually the main route, but rather the recreational or scenic route, between their end points.
both words predate the automobile.
I drive a moped that's not allowed on the parkway, and I don't have a driveway. So the jokes on you, I drive on the street and park on the street. Boo ya.
Good day can be either
“Good day sir” = hello to a person of higher status.
“Good day sir!” In abrupt tone = please leave.
“G’Day mate” = casual Aussie hello
In french we have different forms, basically good day (bonjour) for greeting and Have a good day (bonne journée) for leaving. Same for good evening. Good night is only ever said when you are pretty sure someone is going to bed soon I think, I wouldn't say it to someone off to do a night shift.
I used to start work an hour before the night shift changed over with the day shift at a medical facility. I’d always say “good night” to the workers leaving at 07:30hrs and they loved it. It was the end of their day, so it made sense.
Good Morning can also mean "go away", with the right tone
Then there is "nice night"
It's all about tense (past, present, future) and the idioms which leave out those implied verbs that indicate tense. You can still wish someone a good night as a form of greeting, but you'll need to use those "extra" words to avoid the idiomatic expression. Saying good evening is just the common shortened idiomatic form.
Good night?
Usually I say “good night” as “hello” and “have a good night” as “goodbye”
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.