Is it safe to say godspeed to a colleague leaving for a new job, or does it sound like a burial? That hesitation is the reason most people who know the word still never use it. It occupies an awkward register: old enough to feel ceremonial, yet familiar enough that nobody wants to get it wrong in public. Fortunately the rules are narrow and easy to learn, as the word does a single job in a handful of positions. This guide runs through the grammar, the occasions, the punctuation and the mistakes, with model sentences you can adapt. You should finish able to write it without hedging.<\/p>\n
Understand the wish inside the word before you place it. Godspeed goes back to the Middle English phrase God spede, elliptical for God spede you, meaning may God cause you to prosper. The verb is the archaic sense of speed, from Old English spedan, which meant to succeed or thrive, not to hurry. Reference works place the phrase at roughly 1250 to 1300, the fused form appearing from the late fourteenth century and its use as a parting salutation established by the mid-fifteenth. The modern noun sense at Merriam-Webster is a wish for success offered to a person on parting. So in saying it you are wishing someone a good outcome, and how long their journey takes is irrelevant.<\/p>\n