I take my leave

On greetings and goodbyes

I’ve been thinking about the French, and about other nations and peoples, and how they do some things so much better than us. Us being the UK, but probably the monocultural and monolingual people of the UK, although that is an assumption.

When I spent six months in a small village in France, 20 years ago, to write The Big Necessity, I spent a lot of time in the company of expats. Then, as now, expats in France tend to conform to a pattern: they are near retirement age or past it or they are wealthy enough to have retired early, they often speak very little French, and make desultory efforts to learn it, preferring to pass their time in an English-speaking bubble with other expats, watching illegal Sky TV or (now) Netflix in English. It is different after Brexit, of course, because it is less attractive to buy an old house and do it up, but back then any expat dinner would consist of what I called brico-conversation (bricolage is French for DIY) as people gave endless updates on their house renovations and how terrible French tradespeople are at turning up (that bit is true). I got very sick of hearing about grouting.

There are exceptions to my summary of course: younger people who set up businesses and learn French and try to honour the place they live in by integrating rather than just sitting on top of it like a snail. But back then mostly it was expats and endlessly dull conversations about DIY. Cela me pétait vraiment les plombs. (I really thought that phrase was ruder than it is, but it actually translates to my fuses being blown. Even though péter is also to fart.)

Where was I? Oh, something that other countries do better. And this was something that even expats managed:

Greeting and taking leave

The English-speaking world is now terrible at this and has been since we lost the phrase “good day” from every day language. It is unthinkable in most of Europe not to say Bonjour/Buongiorno/Guden Tag/whatever when you enter a shop or cafe, for example. Once when I lived in Bologna I visited a posh bookshop where they sold ridiculously expensive hand-bound books. I wanted to buy a gift and intended to. I entered, and the woman working there was talking to another customer. Nonetheless I said buongiorno to the air as you are meant to, and then browsed. When she had finished, she came over and loudly berated me for not having said buongiorno to her. I was stunned. And also humiliated. And also filled with injustice. I left without buying anything and made sure to say “buongiorno” (which handily can also mean goodbye, as good day could). I suppose in hindsight it was quite funny that she was being profoundly rude about being polite.

Now transfer to the UK. Because I have lived in Italy and France and been trained, I find it very unsettling to enter a shop and not say hello or to leave a shop without saying goodbye. But when I do, I’m usually greeted with either bafflement or a shocked “goodbye” back. I have learned to temper it to a “see you” in certain situations, but I always try to verbally take my leave. The trouble is, in this country it is now normal not to. It wasn’t always like this.

I don’t get it. I think it is great to live in a country where it is routine to thank a bus driver for doing her/his job. Yet we can’t manage verbal courtesy in other contexts. I think it’s because we haven’t got the phrases any more. To enter a shop and boom HELLO doesn’t really work. To say “good day” is just weird and according to the internet fell out of favour in the mid-twentieth century when “society became less formal.” Less formal. More rude.

Nor is it just in shops. At the weekend I was away in Derbyshire with my running club on our annual camping trip. I can’t really run yet, as I decided to climb over a gate in Crocs and bruised a rib, but I can walk. So everyone else set off running and I set off walking to Mam Tor, and then carried on all the way to Lose Hill. It was a strange experience. I’m used to wild places etiquette, which is that if you encounter another person on the moors or fells or woods, you greet each other. I found it extremely bizarre in Norway that this did not happen, and the eventual explanation that Norwegians think it is more polite not to disturb you unconvincing. On Ilkley Moor, there is now a rule: if someone is under 30, they will not greet you. They won’t even look at you. And it is not because they are Norwegian. They haven’t learned the code. Also you don’t resemble a phone screen.

Mam Tor was my first encounter with a Tik Tok outdoor destination. It is easy to get to; there are buses that drop you right at its feet, and the climb isn’t too hard. A clubmate saw a woman climbing the steps in high-heeled wedges and a red jumpsuit. I can almost respect that. Mam Tor was one of the most crowded places in the wilds that I have ever been to and I didn’t really like it. What was striking was how few people said hello. And the ones who did, I knew were “proper” walkers, with walking poles and stuff. But I knew they were proper walkers because they said hello. They were unlikely to take a selfie video for Tik Tok, and they knew the code.

I found this depressing interaction on Reddit:

No, PassiveChemistry, you’re wrong. It does sound like it belongs in a Dickens novel but actually saying good day only died out in about the 1950s and IT NEEDS REINSTATING.

No, saying “have a good day” is not the the same thing. That’s just American.

So I will mount a one-woman campaign. In the same way that I loudly say HELLO! to young people on the moor, startling them and feeling no pity, I will modify my behaviour to fit my principles. The next time you hear a woman say loudly “GOOD DAY” as she sails out of a shop having bought white elbow-length gloves, that will be me.

Good day!

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