# 'How goes the war?' - Phrase origin

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-goes-the-war-phrase-origin/960187>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 27, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-goes-the-war-phrase-origin/960187 "2022-02-27T15:57:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-goes-the-war-phrase-origin/960187/1 "2022-02-27T15:57:57Z")

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Several times in my life, though not at all recently, I’ve heard ‘How goes the war?’ used as a secondary greeting; as in: ‘Good morning, Bob. How goes the war?’

Where does the phrase originate? ‘How goes the night?’ is spoken in Macbeth, but that’s ‘night’, and not ‘war’.

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**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-goes-the-war-phrase-origin/960187/2 "2022-02-27T18:22:27Z")

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From [The Answer Bank](https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Phrases-and-Sayings/Quotes/Question784104.html), a possible ancestor.

> ‘How goes the battle?’ was a jocular greeting in Canada in the 1940s. ‘How’s battle?’ - without the ‘the’ - was used by some here from the mid-1930s to mean the battle of life. It’s just a variant of ‘How’s it going?’, really, the ‘it’ meaning life in general.