Rhyming Goodbyes

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

In English, if we’re saying a casual goodbye, we might say, see you later, alligator. After a while, crocodile. And it turns out that there are lovely rhyming goodbyes like that in several different languages.

For example, in Spanish, you might say, ciao, pescao, which means bye, fish. And in Dutch, you say, ayou, pas de plus, which means… oh, I hear the French in that.

Yeah?

Goodbye, umbrella.

Yes. That may have been popularized by a Dutch sportscaster. Ayou, pas de plus. And in French, there’s one that goes, a plus, dans le bus. See you later on the bus.

Yeah. But one of my favorites is in Swedish. It goes, tako, hey, liverpaste. Thank you. Goodbye, liverpaste.

That’s really good. You know, there are more verses to the see you later alligator after a wild crocodile, but they don’t make any sense either. There’s one like, if you beg, said the egg.

Oh, I didn’t know that.

Yeah. In a few said the stew. They’re all food related. I don’t know why.

Well, I know that there are lots and lots and lots of these, and we would love to hear about them from you. So send them to words@waywordradio.org. Or if you want to talk about any aspect of language, give us a call. 877-929-9673.