At the chemist’s: recording of a 1930s conversation in England

It predates “Have a nice day”, as used in America.

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Did they have dryers then?

I think that the difference between “Good Morning” as in “I trust you will have a good morning, Mr Pharmacist” and “Good Morning” as in “Get the fuck out of my house!” is maybe subtle, but telling. I think that Bilbo was using the term in the manner of an angry 18th Dandy, “Good morning to you sir!”

@ludd Is “Have a nice day” used in the same manner; to tell people to go do one, dependent on context?

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Anything can be used to mean the opposite. Never let anyone tell you English is not a tonal language!

Do run along and have a nice day now, old bean; there’s a good chap. :wink:

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And never underestimate the amount of menace that can be communicated in the word “pal”.

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Why I oughta…!

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Yeah? You and whose army, my most esteemed friend?

And @SheiffFatman - Most especially when uttered in a Glaswegian accent!

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Reading @SheiffFatman’s comment, my mind immediately turned to Jock McClaren from “Porridge”.

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Also, the word ‘pal’ quadruples in menace when qualified by the words “you lookin’ at me…”

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The Batley Townswomen’s Guild, actually.
Justly renowned for their re-enactment of the first heart transplant.

vnkUHiH

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Yeah, it’s not so much that there is a proper order and other orders are wrong, it’s just that other orders might mean something different. Which is the story of English as a language, you can’t really be wrong when you are speaking English.

I think the massive string of adjectives confuses it. If we bring it down to just “rectangular green knife” or “green rectangular knife” those sound like they mean different things to me. The former is a green knife that is rectangular in shape, the latter is a green example of a type of knife known as a rectangular knife.

Compare “square blue peg” to “blue square peg” and “round red insignia” to “red round insignia”.

Yeah, it’s pretty unusual to jam so many together like that. My formulation is: the “rule” of the ordering isn’t set, but it arises from combinations of relative orderings of other pairs of adjectives. (Like it’s always “little old”, and it’s always “purpose noun”…)

These do feel different in a nebulous kind of way.

I think we can all agree: English is weird, yo.

I can’t, but you can be mistaken and they can be downright wrong. (Points to Pedant Pendant badge.)

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Actually, my meaning was more along the lines of the phrase being used as the opening of a conversation and sometimes also the end of a conversation. Depending on how terse is the delivery it informs you that the conversation HAS ended. It can be a polite way of telling someone to hop it.

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“Do run along”? “Old bean”? “There’s a good chap”? What century is that meant to be from? Do Americans really imagine the English talk like that? Or do they just have tin ears?

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Finally, Lilias Armstrong’s use of good morning as a farewell might seem particularly unusual to modern ears.

How ‘modern’? I’ve heard it used that way in more than a few UK films set in contemporary times.

Also, see part 13 here.

Then there’s the tic-plagued Scotsman “Archie” in Mike Leigh’s Naked. Just another way to ‘politely’ ask for a fag.

Well, if they do then they won’t hear the tone that was delivered with.

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