Way back at the dawn of the civilized English language, people used to greet each other with wordy, extended phrases, such as “May God give you a good morning,” or even just “Have a good morning.” These greetings were not limited to the morning of course, as people would often wish each other a good afternoon, good evening, good day, or good night. For reasons that I can only attribute to grammatical laziness, these niceties were shortened over time. Because who has the 1.5 seconds to say all of that, when you can easily just say “Good morning?”
All of our traditional greetings have been chopped down to their most basic two word phrases, and our traditional parting phrase, “God be with ye,” has been shortened to only one word: Goodbye. An interesting side note: “good day” and “good night” are generally used for parting, while “good morning,” “good afternoon,” and “good evening” are used for greeting. This may be due to the fact that language is completely random and made up. End side note. Anyway, we get along just fine by saying “Good ______” to people for most of the day, because most of the day we are bundles of energy compared to the most hated and lazy time of each 24-hour cycle, the morning.
Mornings are the worst. This has been scientifically proven by me. I have experienced over 13,000 mornings, and they have all been terrible. As a control group, I have also decided to experience an equal number of afternoons, evenings, and nights, and I have come to the solid conclusion that all of those times are far preferable to the dreaded morning. You can tell that people are extra tired and grumpy in the morning, because they don’t even have the energy to greet you with two words. So many times I have come upon someone in the hours before noon and said “good morning” to them, only to be met with a hasty “morning.” Not even a good!
In case it wasn’t clear from the first paragraph, “good morning” is not a qualitative review of the early half of the day so far. You are not the judge of morning, ready to deliver a verdict. Rather, you are wishing vainly for the morning to be good. So you can’t get away with saying that the morning is not good, therefore you omit the first word of the greeting. No, you are leaving it out because you are tired and lazy. Nobody goes around saying “Afternoon!” Okay, some people do that. I have done that. Just not as regularly as they just say “morning.”
But let’s not kid ourselves. There is no “G” at the end of that word. If you are going to leave out the “good,” you are probably not concerned with good diction at the end. You are most likely going to be saying “mornin’.” This makes sense. It takes a lot more oral energy to make the “ng” sound than it does to just say the “n.” And honestly, there may not be a real vowel between those “n”s. I hear a lot of “morn’n'” going around.
So we’ve gone from “May God give you a good morning,” to “morn’n.” Come on people! Finish this! You’re almost there! Do you really need two “n”s? How about just “morn?” Wouldn’t that be even easier? Why stop halfway? And actually, “n”s are way harder to say than “m”s. What about “morm?” Just say “morm” to people. They will understand. Although, come to think of it, I have to move my lips a little bit for that “r” sound. So we should probably just say the first half. From now on, when you see someone early in the day, just go up to them and say “MUH!”
No. I have reconsidered. Saying “muh” requires my mouth to open. Better to just say the “m” by itself. It saves time and energy. But not a long “mmm” sound, or people will think that you want to eat them. To assure people that you do not find them delicious, you must produce a quick, guttural “m” sound without opening your mouth at all. A sort of a grunted hum. If everyone switched to this new, simpler greeting, we would all save a ton of energy, therefore we would need less food, which would save us money and also cut down on carbon emissions. Perfect! The world is safe once again, thanks to the genius that is American laziness. So I hope you will all consider shortening your excess phrases in the future, and I wish you all a *grunted hum*.