I would handle it similarly.
For the most part, I think that people should mind their own business and not be intrusive in other people’s lives.
Have a nice day is more than enough.
Bolding mine.
Now, i don’t claim encyclopedic knowledge of all western cultural forms, but i’ve lived for extended periods in Australia, the UK, Canada, and the United States, and i’ve never once heard “I hope you marry a nice girl” as a good luck wish. When people have wished me good luck they have usually said, funnily enough, “good luck,” or somthing very similar.
Frankly, i can’t imagine using the phrase to anyone. And if i did use it, it would certainly only be to someone who i knew well enough to know his sexual orientation.
Do people really use this phrase as a common colloquial expression of good wishes? If so, i guess i must not move in those social groups.
It’s “wrong and extremely low class” for me to offer the equivalent sentiment in the context of a different religion? Or it’s “wrong and extremely low class” to entreat a sky fairly to shower someone with beneficence, without taking into account how they might feel about sky fairies in general, or your sky fairy in particular?
I think people’s reactions to my “May you be the first to die” well wishing illustrate perfectly that what you say or mean to imply has nothing to do with what people are perfectly justified to infer. And I agree with Abbie Carmichael’s note a few posts later lampooning the need for disclaimers. It’s not nearly as entertaining if you explain about the Great Old Ones and that the only alternative to quick death is jibbering madness and death.
Yes.
No.
Maybe?
I don’t know what to say, because you are right, it is NOT something that comes up in conversation often. Nevertheless, I can’t conceive of a situation where it wouldn’t be used as kind of a generic well wishes term. I see this phrase as one used by little old ladies, people for whom the complexities of orientation and the like are a mystery, people straight out of 50s sitcoms. My whole point has been that anyone who would actually use such a statement HAS to be using it innocently, because there is no other way to use such an archaic phrase. YMMV
I was amused and just expressing it in my normal, whimsical way.
Abbie… has more issues than a comic book store.
I’d be fine with “Goddess bless you.” But again, if someone wrote that, I’d automatically assume they were Wiccan/pagan or that they simply believed God was a woman and were wishing me well, whereas “Satan bless you” would, most likely, be intended to offend. It’s much more about intent than what was actually written.
That’s exactly what I suggested to my friend that he ought to have done. I mean, he wouldn’t have had to take her aside to do it, but I thought he should have said something like, “Ma’am, I see you’ve written, ‘God bless you,’ on our checks. It’s really nice to get personalized service like that, but I’m not a religious person and, while I’m not horribly offended, someone else might be. Maybe you could write something like, ‘Have a nice day,’ or, ‘Come back soon,’ instead.”
I haven’t heard this term before.
Psst…Abbie Carmichael-please google H. P. Lovecraft
BTW, isn’t it, first to be eaten, not die?
I second (third, fourth, is probably more like it) what jjimm and Aesiron said. With friends like that, who needs enemies? :rolleyes:
The world is full of people who…well, their hearts are in the right place, but their heads, not so much. They manage to take the best of intentions and somehow inadvertently utter stuff that could be incredibly offensive. They mean well, but they wind up telling the gay guy they hope he finds a nice girl, or blessing the atheist, or wishing for the militantly childless to have lots of babies, or something equally inappropriate. You’ve got two options for dealing with these folks: you can lambast them for the offense and give yourself a headache (or an ulcer) doing it, or you can give them credit for the good intentions and save yourself the crankiness.
A friend from high school spent a fair portion of my wedding shower (the part after I’d mentioned we weren’t having kids) talking about how I was going to be very surprised soon, because she’d been talking to God on my behalf. I could have gotten in a snit over her presuming to pray for me to get something that would make me miserable. I could have yelled, “God knows I don’t want any stinkin’ babies, you sanctimonious twit!” I could have gotten in a huff about how not everyone had to have her same idea of happiness. That would have been an awful lot of stress, though. Or I could acknowlege that she thinks having kids is a wonderful thing, and her comment, inappropriate as it might be, was really just a wish for me to have something wonderful. Given the choice between offense at someone’s poor choice of words and happiness that they want something good to happend to me, I’m going for the happiness. It’s a lot easier on my stomach.
This thread is an excellent example of why I think the US custom of tipping is just a really bad idea. You can’t just decide not to pay people in normal business transactions because for whatever arbitrary, subjective reason you feel you don’t want to. Are you going to not pay your car mechanic because he said “God bless?” Are you going to lop 15-20% off your vehicle registration fees because you felt the service you received at your local Department of Motor Vehicles just wasn’t peppy & cheerful enough? Are you just going to not pay your lawyer, your doctor, the IRS? Good luck, and get ready to go to court and/or have your credit ruined.
Yet people feel they can punish their food server for whatever little personal gripe or bad mood or generally bad attitude or bad day or bad life they happen to be having.
The food server didn’t say, “we don’t serve your kind here, get out.”
I wish they would just build 15-20% into the prices on the menu, pay the servers a set wage and leave it at that. If the service is so horrible you don’t want to pay for the meal, then you should have the balls to go to management and get your entire meal comp’d.
Anyway, I see the tipping and “God bless” note as two entirely separate things. You pay for the service that was rendered (you pay the tip). Then you pull the server aside and let her know that while you appreciate the sentiment, it’s possible some of her customers don’t share her apparent beliefs, but thanks for the good service.