“Thank you for flying Delta Airlines. We hope you have/ had a wonderful flight and we hope that your ongoing flight is wonderful too. We hope that when you arrive at your final destination, that you have a wonderful evening”

“Thank you and have a wonderful day”

“Have a wonderful evening”

“Have a wonderful trip”

“It’s been wonderful to meet you”

“Wow! you have the most WONDERFUL accent!”

“Thank you for checking in with us at Waffle house, we hope you have a wonderful meall”

Hang on a minute, what’s with this wonderful?  I know I am hardly the world’s leading authority on all things American, but I thought (and I’ve obviously got things very badly wrong here) that States side, folks said ‘Have a nice day’? When did the Wonderful day/night/flight/meal/evening bit happen?

Don’t misunderstand me, I think it’s brilliant to meet with such upbeat stuff, but I truly wasn’t expecting the word WONDERFUL to creep into just about every conversation and human interaction. Despite my drip feed diet of Americana over the past X amount of years this one word seems to have passed straight over my radar and I am intrigued as to how and when it came about.

won·der·ful  wuhn-der-fuhl]

adjective

1.

excellent; great; marvelous: We all had a wonderful weekend.

2.

of a sort that causes or arouses wonder;  amazing; astonishing: The storm was wonderful to behold.

 

I use the word wonderful in its truest sense often, but I also use it ironically or when I wish to be facetious. For example I’ll say ‘Oh, that’s great, that’s really wonderful….’ when actually I’m having a total hissy fit and I’m really pissed off about something. Pedro has learnt that when I say ‘I’m fine’ actually I’m not, not at all. Most women I know say ‘I’m fine’ because it’s easier than getting into some long-winded argument or conversation about what’s really peeing you off.

So because my Winnie the Pooh mind works in the way that it does, yesterday when I was stuck on 2 different flights for a period of around 4 hours in total, I started thinking about how if wonderful has overtaken nice as a form of colloquial speech, then what might happen when wonderful gets tired and boring and something else needs to take its place? I’ve tapped into the thesaurus and I fancy that any of these synonyms might be used in the future.

Main Entry:	Wonderful wuhn-der-fuhl
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	great, extraordinary
Synonyms:	admirable, amazing, astonishing, astounding, awe-inspiring, awesome, brilliant, cool*, divine*, dynamite, enjoyable, excellent, fabulous, fantastic, fine, groovy*, incredible, magnificent, marvelous, miraculous, outstanding, peachy*, phenomenal, pleasant, pleasing, prime, remarkable, sensational, something else, staggering, startling, strange, stupendous, super, superb, surprising, swell, terrific, too much*, tremendous, unheard-of, wondrous
Antonyms:	bad, lousy, poor, rotten

• = informal/non-formal usage

All of the above float my boat especially PEACHY, DIVINE and GROOVY, which are my personal favourites (Pedro is more enamoured with STRANGE and thinks that might work nicely. Have a Strange flight/meal/day! The thought is a little unnerving!)

What’s the betting that in a few years Delta Airlines use any of the above to bestow love and good wishes to their passengers? I can’t wait!

Thanks to Dictionary.com