"have a blessed day"

let us break this phrase down into its blessed parts and spread the resulting paste between two intact days

first of all, is it "bless-ed" or "blesst"

i was in knoxville recently, in the foothills mall, and as i walked out of a department store (i think it was belk; either that or j.c. penney) the greeter said "have a blessed day!" and i stopped myself just in time from exhorting "praise be!!"

a couple of days later i got "have a blessed day" from the guy selling newspapers at the airport. i never heard this growing up, is this a thing now???

― transparent play for gifs (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:12 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Very much so.

― Gett Off, Eileen (WilliamC), Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:17 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Down here in Dixieland, anyway.

― Gett Off, Eileen (WilliamC), Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:18 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like when ppl tell me to have a blessed day. It makes me feel blessed.

― welltris (crüt), Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:32 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not sure it's a thing "now" I think it's just a thing

― welltris (crüt), Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:33 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't remember hearing it constantly until maybe, idk, 8-10 years ago? But this is very hazy. I have this possibly misplaced sense that it emerged out of some kinda resistance to the secularization of daily life in the South, the whole "they're taking prayer out of the schools!" well. I would assume that 99+% of people who say it have no allegiance to some passive-aggressive CLICK SHARE AND WE'LL SHOW THEM WHO'S GOD AROUND HERE mentality but I'm convinced that kind of thing helped spread and popularize it.

― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:36 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Did they say "blessed" in one or two syllables?

― pplains, Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:38 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

One syllable = ah, it's all good.

Two syllables = arouses suspicion of intent.

― pplains, Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:39 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Or is it the other way around, dang i'm no good at this.

― pplains, Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:40 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it's kind of cunty

― big fat rascal (will), Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:40 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thought i would have aged out of this mindset by now, but alas. i guess that's on me though. i could always move.

― big fat rascal (will), Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:43 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my side job brings me into contact w/ many ppl that i have been socially isolated from, yer lumpen proles of the nation basically, and their love for signing off 'have a blessed day' is def. localized to the south but not restricted to there

― j., Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:54 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i hear 'have a blessed day' a lot now, often in contexts where it's clearly an order from management (like every kid working the window at cookout says it, no way that's just happening on its own), always w/ complete friendly sincerity, none of that occasional implied 'fuck off' you get w/ 'have a nice day' or those pointed 'merry CHRISTMAS that's right i went there' you sometimes get. thx to #blessed the religious element of it feels very dampened down, to me at least. at the same time when i do hear it internally i think 'will do.'

― balls, Sunday, 30 August 2015 19:45 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

those pointed 'merry CHRISTMAS that's right i went there'

yeah this. i'm certain i'm being too hard on ppl who genuinely mean well, but i personally know waaay too many folks (mostly via extended fam and high school folks who've reconnected on facebook) who are gleefully throwing it in the face of this imagined freedom-killing PC bogeyman.

― big fat rascal (will), Sunday, 30 August 2015 20:01 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm so down on Christmas these days I'd honestly be happier if people didn't impose fucking Christmas on me every year.

― go hang a salami I'm a canal, adam (silby), Sunday, 30 August 2015 20:20 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/glossary/g/Blessed_Be.htm

― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 30 August 2015 21:38 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"have a blessed day"

If I ever visit Dixie again i will have my broad smile and "hail Satan" ready.

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 31 August 2015 12:12 (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Have never heard of this 'have a blessed day' business; intrigued.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Monday, 31 August 2015 12:19 (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bless This Satanic Mess, in papyrus italics

― 1995 ball boy (Karl Malone), Monday, 31 August 2015 12:32 (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

“We are a professional organization defended by a professional force. Our defenders portray a professional image that represents a base all of Middle Georgia can be proud of. Defenders have been asked to use the standard phrase “Welcome to Team Robins” in their greeting and can add various follow-on greetings as long as they remain courteous and professional.

The Air Force takes any expressed concern over religious freedom very seriously. Upon further review and consultation, the Air Force determined use of the phrase “have a blessed day” as a greeting is consistent with Air Force standards and is not in violation of Air Force Instructions.”

first of all, is it "bless-ed" or "blesst"

The former. And it should be capitalized, as it is a derivation of the now-antiquated phrase 'have a Brian Blessed day'.

I'm assuming this is an American thing?

I don't think I've ever had anyone say this to me. It must be a Southern thing. It's weird and I don't like it.

"blessed" in general is a huge thing with all the weirdo Jesusy instagram ladies who are like "I love coffee, taking pictures, and Jesus. I am blessed.". It's gross.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npVeERMqRAs

I'm not sure it's a thing "now" I think it's just a thing

It's probably always been around down here in the south, but the usage of it has definitely picked up in the last decade or so. Actually, since around 9/11 times.

The fact that anyone would object to this is just further evidence of the state of persecution under which Christians live in the US. I'm going to pray for all of you. If I'm even allowed to do that anymore.

It's probably always been around down here in the south

The practice of businesses instructing their employees to end all their transactions with customers with the cheerful admonition to "have a nice day!" became widespread in the USA circa 1972. NB: This was also the historic moment when the smiley face icon was launched on its long and illustrious career.

I expect that "have a blessed day" was the brainchild of some evangelical looking to ride the coattails of this phenomenon and thus would date to some time after "have a nice day" exploded onto the scene.

always think of some kid with learning disabilities being referred to as "blessed" and realize that yeah, I do have a lot of blessed days

I take this phrase at face value as a sincere wish for blessings in my day. There are about a trillion things Christians (& non-Christians) can do that are more creepy & insidious than telling me to have a blessed day.

it's a way to signal that you and yr business are god-fearing christians while maintaining plausible deniability should some heathen take offense

smdh

The waitress at the bar in the park said this to me after she poured my beer. I went and sat down and looked at the receipt and it said Server: Blessed.

I hear this often in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. I wish I were charitable enough to accept it at face value, but usually I hear it as an invitation to bless the speaker in return so that we can share a moment of joy as good Christians. My standard response is "Thank you."

"you too, sug"

'aw naw you need it more than i do, please, i couldn't'

idg how anyone could be offended by this

I'm not offended by it but I don't like it. It's weird and feels imposing to me.

a lot of individuals have had situations with outright hostility involving people injecting religion into their daily lives and the word blessed has a literal, dictionary meaning that invokes religion?

in itself it's pretty harmless, but if the pharmacist said that to the last client right before denying to fill your prescription due to religious purposes it's going to sound a lot more ominous

^^^^^^^^^

feel like i've heard nfl players say this at the end of post-game interviews

YOU'RE GONNA NEED IT

oh nothing

consciously or not, it's a tiny act of coercion

I feel weird because I don't have a good thing to say when someone sneezes that doesn't sound religiousy or rude

but if the pharmacist said that to the last client right before denying to fill your prescription due to religious purposes it's going to sound a lot more ominous

wow, i'm sorry this happened to so many people posting in this thread

I don't dislike it enough to say something or make a big deal out of it but it sounds strange and unnecessary to me but again perhaps that is because it's 1) not a common thing up here 2) I'm an atheist.

"Oh, I plan to." (dark & meaningful look)

xxxp - I say Gesundheit for that very reason

I have a friend this used to bug, but he grew up in an obnoxiously oppressive "religious" household where his parents policed his behavior and were generally shitty to him. I doubt he cares either way these days, but it definitely wore on him when he moved to Louisiana for a while.

Yeah, it's not like I lose sleep or get actively angry at the thought of this but I do find things like this a little annoying even though I know that 98% of the time it's totally innocuous.

"Have a devil of a day!"

it is 99% people just wishing you well in the nicest way they know how, and 1% passive aggressive people who are trying to throw you in the depths of hellfire

they denied Him three times, you know

Have a non-damned day

I think my problem with it is that it feels like something someone very deliberately came up with to "combat secularism" associated with "have a nice day," sort of like adding the word "God" to our money and our pledge of allegiance. I doubt it was in common usage prior to fairly recently, either here or in any of Christendom.

Just say nice. Have a nice day. It's simple.

have a good one

namaste

lol just had a conversation with a friend about saying namaste instead

Turn it around on them with a convivial "blessed be".

I don't mind being wished a blessed day. It sounds labored when you could just say nice instead, though.

My favorite is when I get an added "sugar" or "baby" or "darlin'".

Maybe try to out-religion them, like "May your day be such that Christ did not suffer in vain"

lol

I'm gonna start answering "And also with you..."

I always feel embarrassed when someone tells me to have a nice day, it seems sort of presumptuous somehow? but it's not as common here in the UK, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3tdq-e4nqY

tortoises all the way down, my friend

wait, how does one have a blessed day, i mean do i even have agency in that?

Well, you have to walk the path of the righteous in order to receive those blessed benefits, so yeah.

xp - "thanks, but it's not up to me"

It mostly just irks me that people are only willing to dole out the blessings day-by-day. Sure, today is blessed, but then I have to worry about tomorrow being a shitshow unless you give me a re-up. Have a blessed life. One time. How hard is that.

1. I recommend "scat cat" for sneezing.
2. I don't care for people telling me to "Have a blessed day" but I'm not an asshole about it.
3. There's a train operator for the CTA who does some intercom patter, which includes welcoming people to the Blessed Train as in "All aboard the Blessed Train. The Blessed Train is the best train" and I fully support this weirdness.

As long as the train operator doesn't do something irritating to counteract my interest in what you posted, I am 100% in favor of The Blessed Train.

He says all sorts of weird shit, like when he stops at the station near DePaul he'll say, "Study hard, DePaulies" or when he gets to the Loop he'll tell people to have a donut and a cup of coffee.

Full disclosure: Jeff can't stand him, but I always do feel a little more blessed when I ride the Blessed Train.

As far as "Have a bless'd day," it's been almost exclusively said to me by sweet and friendly older black ladies. This is pretty classic and not only do I not have a problem with it, I kinda like it and feel there's some small hope for mankind. Now, were some asshole to say it and pronounce it bless-ed and hand me one of those fake dollar bills with a Jesus message on it instead of a tip or whatever, my view would most certainly change.

On the pronunciation front, many hymns, I think, use bless-ed, two syllables. They need both syllables to make the weird hymn-style word salad work out right.

oh, if he irritates Jeff, I'm sold xp

I'm all for anything that interjects (non-threatening/non-bodily-emission-related) interest/weirdness into my morning commute.

LOL

god Bless

would ride Blessed Train

I take this phrase at face value as a sincere wish for blessings in my day. There are about a trillion things Christians (& non-Christians) can do that are more creepy & insidious than telling me to have a blessed day.

― welltris (crüt)

yeah this, it's always been around (lol at ppl finding this ott religious, wait til you get a load of 'bless his heart'), but i hear it alot more now in a customer service way, thinking specifically of cookout (which i don't think is national yet right?) i could imagine the owners being somewhat religious, wanting to emulate chic-fil-a's success somehow but sure as hell not about to close on sundays and going "we'll have drive thru say 'have a blessed day'" and maybe they'll get some of that truett cathey magic that way. i don't think any more of it than when some hippie store tells me namaste or whatever or when a cop or bankteller tells me koritfw when i'm done dealing w/ them. and ime it's blesst.

you get a lotta cops n bank tellers doin that??

a google search suggests that balls is in fact the only person who says koritfw

wait til you get a load of 'bless his heart'

Oh, I looooooove that.

well they may not say it but it's always implied

the relevant ilx thread for koritfw

what does that stand for

B
E
N
G
H
A
Z
I

except that's how they say it in arabic

The track was used in Donald Trump's announcement that he will run as a Republican candidate for the 2016 presidency. Young, a longtime supporter of Bernie Sanders, said that the mogul was not authorized to use the song.

Trump's campaign responded by saying it did pay to use Neil Young's tune at the presidential announcement, but won't use Young's music at any future events. "Through a licensing agreement with ASCAP, Mr. Trump's campaign paid for and obtained the legal right to use Neil Young's recording of 'Rockin' In The Free World,'" the statement read. "Nevertheless, there are plenty of other songs to choose from. Despite Neil's differing political views, Mr. Trump likes him very much."

Trump later hit back, posting a photo of him and Young shaking hands, and explaining that Young asked him for financing on an audio deal and invited Trump to a concert. In a Tweet, Trump called Young a "total hypocrite," adding, "'Rockin' In The Free World' was just one of 10 songs used as background music. Didn’t love it anyway."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blessed
this word has lively comments section

WELL, I am at the point of my life in which I have used the word many ,many times, but recently am speculating if GOD even exist, well the GOD, I have known as GOD, the one whom has JESUS as his son....so if i use the word BLESSED, I want to make sure it has NO connection to GOD, but rather a term meaning I AM HONORED to have what I have, which is not much, but still every so much as in a BLESSING ITSELF....do you know what i mean ????? I once practiced ZENISM, and although an OCCULT/MYSTICISM SAYING.>>>BLESSED BE...I USED THAT SAYING OFTEN ! That was before finding Jesus...but now some 40 years later I find myself puzzled and question his existence.

well they may not say it but it's always implied

true

I'm struggling to think of anyone here who'd say "have a nice day" let alone a blessed one. It sounds like something hippies would say after bowing at you with a cup of nettle tea in hand.

lol my oldest friend (who admittedly shares approx 20 of these horrible things a day and who is essentially my polar opposite in a lot of ways) just put this on FB

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xlf1/v/t1.0-9/11960183_1128391903899164_1193525635738877939_n.jpg?oh=c0bac17d1e37eb9c102e76c3064c7e3e&oe=566D0522

Thank you, homosexual cardinals!

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blessed
this word has lively comments section

Wait, why the fuck does Webster's even have a comments section? "I have an interesting (and shockingly-racist) story about 'the'."

have a nice blood

― μpright mammal (mh), Monday, August 31, 2015 3:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-original-meaning-of-word-bless-is.html

"goodbye" means essentially the same thing as "have a blessed day" btw

LOL at this thread.

In general it's a pretty innocuous thing just someone trying to be a nice person but can def see it coming across as religious humblebragging (file w the more condescending "Bless your heart").

stay blessed in the free world, y'all

^ killer shot of love outtake

I get real blessed on the reg

I don't think I've ever had anyone say this to me. It must be a Southern thing. It's weird and I don't like it.

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB),

I am near Washington DC and hear it the most from African-American co-workers. I am used to it.

there's something about the sentence construction that casts it in a faintly absurd light

like "have a ______ day" is just a lego set of possible wishes, into which "blessed" has taken root and grown

like 80 years from now you might run into people saying "have a Trump day!" in homage to america's greatest president

this is totally my own fucked up attitude towards white 'murican xtianity but when someone wishes christ's blessings on me or whatever i feel like i'm letting the blesser down when later that day i curse or have premarital sex or think a mean thought.

like, would the blesser revoke the blessing if they had known my plans for that day?

I don't really mind if people say this to me, or even if they say "God bless". I mean these days, I meet so many petulant shits, someone being nice to me is kind of refreshing.

I only mind when someone decides to go on some sort of religious rant with me unprovoked, which lately seems to happen all the time as my face must convey "please, unload all of your baggage on me" to people.

they'd shake their heads sadly and maybe even put a dagger in with "bless his heart"

xpost

the modern usage of #blessed is just "i'm lucky" so i guess it's you, the putative blessee, get to choose in your own mind how to divvy up what percent of it is "may destiny smile upon you" and what proportion constitutes the remaining, residual jeezo-speak

#humbled

#koritfw

#notallcashiers

#dootdooladootdoo...

'Bless your heart' was, I always thought, Southern-lady code for 'fuck you'.

In the UK, when someone is inept or a child does something childlike, there's 'aw, bless!' where nobody using or hearing it assigns religious intent.

"bless your eyes" is the most sickly variant I've come across

'Bless your heart' was, I always thought, Southern-lady code for 'fuck you'.

I hear this a lot but I feel like this aspect of it has been way overblown

it's often like "oh that unfortunate person, how could they have known" but in any case it can sound v condescending v easily

"god'll get you for that"

Hear this shit all the time