Original photo by Diana Grytsku/ Shutterstock
Many farewells have religious connections. Adios in Spanish and adieu in French mean “to God,” for example. The go-to parting phrase in English, “goodbye,” looks rather secular by comparison — it just means to part on good terms, right? Not quite. “Goodbye” is actually a contraction of the phrase “God be with ye.” It started popping up around the 1570s (spelled “godbwye”). The “God” part of “goodbye” likely gained an extra “o” over time to be consistent with other common English salutations, such as “good morning” and “good night.”
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It's a fact“So long” might be a take on the Irish goodbye “slán,” or maybe German’s “adieu so lange.” Hebrew’s “shalom” also could be a possible candidate, as could Arabic’s “salaam.” Unfortunately, little evidence exists of the phrase’s adoption into English, so the mystery remains.
It might make sense to think that the word “good,” styled “gōd” in Old English, comes from some etymologically divine background. Yet despite their seeming similarities, “good” and “God” developed separately from one another. “Gōd” in Old English simply means “excellent; fine; valuable, etc.,” whereas the origin of “God” to refer to an all-knowing deity is harder to pin down. In its Germanic past, the word was actually plural (“gods”) and neuter (meaning not masculine or feminine), which reflected the polytheism common throughout Europe before the rise of Christianity. Once Europe embraced a more monotheistic existence, the word “God” transformed into a singular, masculine noun. This polytheistic history can be seen in other languages, too. Remember adios and adieu? Both come from the Latin root deus, a derivation of Greek mythology’s mightiest deity — Zeus.
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The phrase “God bless you” is connected to a papal decree issued in 600 CE.
When someone sneezes, it’s common to say “bless you.” It turns out, that’s just what Gregory I, a sixth-century pope, would’ve wanted. Although evidence of blessing a sneeze dates back to the Romans, the sneeze itself was often seen as a sign of health. That changed during Gregory’s time, when Europe was beset with disease. In fact, a plague had claimed the life of Gregory’s predecessor, Pope Pelagius II, in 590 CE. Although Gregory I ruled in a time that predated the discovery of bacteria by about 1,000 years, he believed sneezing was a sign of disease. So on February 16, 600 CE, he issued a papal edict declaring that “God bless you” was the correct response if any Christian was within earshot of a sneeze. The phrase has hung around ever since.
Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.
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