At the end of the Radio 3 breakfast show, the presenter Petroc Trelawny finishes by saying Good Morning. It occurred to me that using those words to say goodbye rather than hello has become very unusual, some would say quite dated and old fashioned.
I then thought about how various greetings have changed over time. It is now very rare to hear someone say ‘cheerio’ or the strange phrase ‘toodle- oo’ (apparently, possibly a corruption from the French’ toute a l’heure’ meaning see you later) and ‘goodbye’ is usually shortened to ‘bye’.
Possibly though the strangest modern farewell is ‘see you later’ or even sometimes just ‘later.’ I remember my aged mother being quite bemused by a delivery man breezily saying this to her as he left. She looked at me and asked ‘Whatever does he mean? Do we have plans?’