14-06-2008, 10:10 PM
The following is the oldest chemistry-related joke I can remember from my schoolboy days:
“Au revoir!”
“What does that mean?”
“That’s French for ‘goodbye.’ “
“Carbolic acid!”
“What’s that?”
“That’s ‘goodbye’ in any language.”
Why am I thinking about that now?
Because we’ve been saying goodbye (also spelled “goodby” or “good-bye” or “good-by”) often at work the past month or so. Six newsroom colleagues have taken buyout offers, and several others have left or will leave soon for other reasons. And that’s just in the news department.
So what’s “good” about “goodbye”? The word is a contraction of the phrase “God be with ye,” so the “good” is actually “God.”
Two other common words of farewell, lifted from other languages, have similar ties to religion.
http://tinyurl.com/4mgfyq