I was almost this many days old when I learned about adieu and adios, the fare-thee-well words in French and Spanish, respectively. Learned what, exactly? That they are both concatenations of the word for to and the word for God in their respective languages–a dieu and a dios. It’s an ellipsis, I think.
As we part,
I commend you to God’s care.
Now, I know French and Spanish well enough to know their words for God independently, but somehow–Mon Dieu! Ay Dios!–I never made the connection. I never saw the last four letters of adieu and adios as absorbed words, which says something about how I learn other languages. Not. Very. Well.
Anyway, I learned English pretty good but I didn’t know why English speakers don’t do the same as French and Spanish speakers. (To speak a language is not necessarily to know anything about it.) So, why *don’t* we use togod when we want to say adios?
