On farewells

I found out yesterday that there's a lot more to saying 'good-bye' than I thought there was. I have lamented in the past that in English we always say 'good-bye,' which is so much more final than 'au revoir' or 'auf wiedersehen' or 'hasta luego.' But now I know better...

Someone asked me to take a look at a couple of the different shorter 'good-byes' from other languages to see what they had in common.

Adios
Adieu

Specifically, he said, look at the 'dios' and 'dieu' part.

Whoa.

They literally mean 'to God.'

Then, he said to consider 'good-bye.' Apparently (and I haven't checked this out) good-bye is from scottish and is a variation of 'God be with ye' which evolved through 'God b'w'ye' and eventually reached 'good-bye.'

So when I leave for Serbia, I'll no longer have a problem saying 'good-bye,' and I hope some of you will say it back.

God b'w'ye.