老外临走前说“so long”，好长？真的不是你想的那样！

​so long是“再见”的非正式表达，经常用在你跟对方要有比较长的时间不能见面的情况下，比如有人要去出差一段时间，你跟他再见的时候可以用so long。有点类似中文的“后会有期”。

So long,

在我们的理解中总觉得类似

“long time no see”

更像是见面寒暄的一种

但实际上so long则被西方人用来当“再见”讲

但究竟为什么用so long

却有许多不同的说法
 

So where did it come from?
 

Some believe the phrase to be adapted from another language. One suggestion is that so long is from the Irish good-bye slán, which is not an unreasonable theory. 有些人认为这个短语是从另一种语言改编而来的。其中一个说法是，so long是出自爱尔兰语的再见slán。这个理论听起来似乎有一点道理。

Other possible sources that have been proposed include German adieu so lange (roughly translated: "farewell until we meet again"), Hebrew shalom (a greeting and a good-bye), and Arabic salaam (which is a greeting, not a good-bye, and is thus disqualified). 也有人提出其他的来源，包括德语的adieu so lange(大致翻译为：告别，直到我们再次见面)，希伯来语shalom(打招呼和再见)，阿拉伯语salaam(是打招呼的用语，不是再见，因此这个说法并不可靠)

Except for having similar sounds, these terms, like Irish slán, have no provable connection to the English expression.除了发音相似外，这些短语，像是爱尔兰语slán，与英语表达都没有可以证明的联系。

Usage history of so long suggests it could be an Americanism. Early use is found in Walt Whitman's poem about death and leave-taking entitled "So long!", which was published in the 1860 edition of his Leaves of Grass.我们从历史使用上找，结果发现这是一个美国用语。最早出现在沃尔特·惠特曼1860年出版的关于死亡和告别的诗集《草叶集》的一个标题。

While my pleasure is yet at the full, I whisper, So long! / And take the young woman’s hand, and the young man’s hand, for the last time.当我的快乐已尽时，我低声说，再见!抓住年轻女子的手和年轻男子的手，直到最后一刻

So long! Remember my words—I may again return, / I love you—I depart from materials; / I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.再见!记住我的话——我会再回来我爱你——我远离物质我是作为一个支离破碎的、成功的、死亡的。

It appears that the expression was not yet generally understood by Whitman's American contemporaries.这句话似乎还没有被惠特曼同时代的美国人普遍理解。

A friend of his hadn't heard it until he read the poem, and when he asked Whitman to define it, he called it 他的一个朋友从来都不知道这个说法，直到读了这首诗，当他要求惠特曼给它下定义时，他称它为

"[a] salutation of departure, greatly used among sailors, sports, & prostitutes—the sense of it is till we meet again—conveying an inference somewhere, some how [sic] they will doubtless so meet—sooner or later."离开时的致意，多用于水手、运动员和卖淫者——它的意思是直到我们再次相见——传达了一种不知何地，不知如何，他们早晚都会再见面的意思。

Wherever the expression originated, it diffused quite rapidly. By the 20th century, so long became a common expression of farewell—and no one knows how it happened.无论这种表达起源于何处，它都传播得很快。到了20世纪，so long变成了告别的常用表达，没有人知道它是如何发生的。

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