{"id":2947,"date":"2026-09-20T19:00:35","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T18:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brekku.stovu.net\/?p=2947"},"modified":"2026-09-20T19:57:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T18:57:44","slug":"when-farewell-became-good-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brekku.stovu.net\/en\/2026\/09\/20\/when-farewell-became-good-day\/","title":{"rendered":"When \u2018farewell\u2019 became \u2018good day\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After doing some shopping, I was once again sent on my way by a well-meaning member of staff with the words, \u201cHave a good day.\u201d This is clearly something required by management, as all the staff say it, and the same thing happens in every shop owned by this particular company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I am not a linguist, so I won’t try to analyse exactly what the rather cumbersome \u201chave a good day\u201d means. But why not simply use the short and neat word farv\u00e6l<\/em> \u2013 farewell? Does it not mean precisely the same thing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Old Norse\u00a0far vel<\/em>, English\u00a0farewell<\/em>, imperative of\u00a0fare<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0well<\/em>: \u2018may you fare well\u2019, \u2018may things go well for you\u2019 (ordnet.dk:\u00a0farvel<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The workplaces in question employ many people from abroad who have to learn Faroese. To my mind, it seems rather odd that we should spend time and effort teaching them cumbersome Danish expressions such as ha\u2019 en god dag<\/em> when we have much neater expressions of our own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is interesting, however, is that this is by no means a uniquely Faroese phenomenon. The habit seems to have gained particular ground in American retail and service industries during the second half of the twentieth century, when \u201chave a nice day\u201d became a standard, routine way of saying goodbye to customers \u2013 effectively meaning little more than: we are finished with you now!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expression has also made its way into Britain, though not without resistance. Some people find it anything from affected to impersonal, particularly when staff are required to say it to every customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 30 years ago, the Swedish MP Lennart Frid\u00e9n raised the issue in a motion to the Swedish Parliament. He drew attention to what he regarded as unfortunate American-influenced expressions such as ha en bra dag<\/em> (\u201chave a good day\u201d), arguing that this was detrimental to the Swedish language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trend has also been criticised in Denmark, where it has been pointed out, for example, that Ha\u2019 en go\u2019 dag<\/em> (\u201cHave a good day\u201d) is gradually displacing the old Farvel, og tak<\/em> (\u201cGoodbye, and thank you\u201d). The Danish Language Council has also addressed the phenomenon. In 2016, it noted that god dag<\/em> (\u201cgood day\u201d) had begun to be used as a farewell \u2013 probably as a shortened form of hav en god dag<\/em> (\u201chave a good day\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To my mind, all this makes the farewell more complicated than it needs to be. We have the word farv\u00e6l<\/em>, which is now being replaced by hav ein g\u00f3\u00f0an dag<\/em> (\u201chave a good day\u201d), or even hav ein framhaldandi g\u00f3\u00f0an dag<\/em> (\u201chave a good rest of your day\u201d). And given the way languages often adapt by shortening expressions, perhaps it is not so surprising that the farewell eventually ends up as simply g\u00f3\u00f0an dag<\/em> (\u201cgood day\u201d). This is precisely the development noted by the Danish Language Council in 2016: hav en god dag<\/em> had been shortened to god dag<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So now the expression is not only cumbersome; it has also become the exact opposite of what the words originally meant to say. I think I shall stick to g\u00f3\u00f0an dag<\/em> and farv\u00e6l<\/em> in their original senses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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