My mom recently told me that prior to the early 1970s, no one ever said “Have a nice day” to one another. I’m not sure I believe this, because I find it hard to believe that people did not use this parting salutation prior to the 70s. But according to my mom, they only said things like, “see you soon”, ”thank you”, “good-bye” and “take care”. I should probably add that my mother hates when people tell her to “have a nice day” – she finds this ‘pushy’ and ‘presumptuous’. As she likes to say, “What if I want to have a crappy day?”
After doing a little research, I think she might be confusing this with the saying “Have a Happy Day” and the advent of the smiley face button fad which happened in the late 1960s and peaked in the early 70s. Apparently two fad designers were looking for a peace symbol-like item with more general appeal and thus was born the insipid pre-frontal lobotomy smiley face and the HAVE A HAPPY DAY salutation that so annoys my mom…
It’s also incredible that “hello” wasn’t used much before the 1830′s. Things like that and this post make me wonder how future generations will greet each other. I’m guessing they’ll just post “hi” on each other’s Facebook walls from their iPhones when they meet in person.