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Perhaps I am overanalyzing this, but I have recently noticed that news shows are using the greeting "good morning" in what seem to me to be completely inappropriate contexts. And it's not just the broadcasts that have the "good morning" title.
I have been trying to remember the more appropriate openings journalists used to use for their interviews amidst tragedy. It seems that "hello" and "thank you for joining us" were among the most common, if nothing more empathetic could be conjured up.
Has "good morning" been so totally sucked dry of meaning?
Good morning. Have a nice day.
I'm sure I remember Cronkite and Huntley-Brinkley beginning with "good evening". Maybe the fact that it's morning makes that greeting seem more incongruous.
Not sure where I heard this, but someone once ran down a list of transitions between news stories, finally reaching the one that can be used in any context, regardless of the nature of the material on either side of it: "now this".
It's awkward to address your viewers cheerfully when transitioning to bad news. But I'm noticing the use of "good morning" when the journalist is doing a live interview of some victim - the mayor of a devastated town, the family whose house just burned to the ground, the father of a college student who is hospitalized after an assault.
"Good morning" is truly a fully greeting. It doesn't literally mean that, unless coincidently they're having a good morning.
It's sort of like the questions, "What's up?" or "How's it going?", when you really don't want to know.
When I was young, I discovered that "good morning" was not really its meaning -- it could have been "Ugh!" as long as everyone understood you were simply acknowledging another's presence and engaging them briefly. I started saying "good morning" at al times, rationalizing it that it didn't really have anything to do with a pleasant pre-noon experience anyway. (Anyone notice that you say "good afternoon" less than "good morning"?) Luckily, I grew out of that.
Now, I confine my "good morning" to pre-noon. However, it took me some time to figure out how to respond to "What's good about it!?", as I sometimes encountered. Now, I just reply "Consider it a fond wish."
I still wouldn't use it approaching someone who'd just been widowed, made homeless, etc...
I recall Lenny Bruce doing a riff about “Good night†and “Good day†where the words no longer have their true meaning and that the “good†part is almost non-existent as in “gd-night†“gd-dayâ€. He went on to say that if anyone really wished you a “good night†you'd look at them like they were weird. Lenny was more than profane.
I remember reading somewhere that "Hello" only became common with the telephone. It seems that in older fiction (and period movies and tv shows) "good morning", "good evening" and "good day" are much more common.
Might another solution might be to just begin the question with the person your addresing's name or title? "Mrs. Smith - how did you hear your husband was killed?" or "Your Holiness - do you have any comment about this latest round of scandals?"
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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