What is an alternative to having a nice day?

Used to express good wishes to someone for the rest of their day

“Have a nice day. Try to enjoy the sun while it lasts.”

Used to bid farewell to someone

“Have a nice day, sir. Do visit us again sometime.”

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In the old days, telling someone to have a nice day was a perfectly good way to end a conversation. Now, “nice” seems old-fashioned, weirdly formal, and just plain insufficient. We’re used to hearing “have a great day.” Anything less could almost be considered a slight.

Of course, now even “great” doesn’t seem that, well, great. With the phrase becoming so mundane, it seems destined to be replaced with something more emphatic at some point.

Where will this madness end? We don’t know the answer to that, but we do have some ideas on how to wish someone a great day without sounding like you’re just phoning it in. The following sayings range from sweetly sincere to downright goofy, but all in all, we think they’re pretty great.

Sincere

To start off, here are some heartfelt ways to wish someone a great day.

• Just wanted to pop in and wish you the Best Day Ever!

• Hope you have a shockingly good day. If anyone deserves it, it’s you!
• Have an extra-special, amazingly fun, undeniably awesome, super fantastic day!
• Have a good morning and a fantastic day!
• There’s only one thing I need you to do for me: Have a wonderful day!
• Hope your day is flippin’ awesome!

• Have a glorious day and a blessed week!
• Wishing the best day ever to one of the best people ever!
• Hope your day is as awesome as you are.
• May your day be full of sunshine and laughter.

Funny

One way to ensure someone has a great day is to leave them laughing. With that in mind, here are some humorous well-wishes.

• As the pizza said to the cheese, have a grate day!

• I’d wish you the best day ever, but then it would be all downhill from here. So just have a great day, okay?
• Have a great day… or at least as great as it can be given that I won’t be around.
• May your day be relatively asshole-free.
• Hope your day doesn’t suck!

• Have a stupid good day.
• I’d wish you the best day ever, but you have to work so that’s probably not going to happen. So… have a moderately decent day!
• Hope you have a great day, but if it’s bad, I hope it’s bad in a funny way that you can tell me about later!

Romantic

Finally, here are some ideas on how to say “have a great day” to a very special someone. For more ideas along these lines, see our sweet love messages for her and him.

Thank you, members of Levey's Legions, for buying in and weighing in. Thanks to your submissions, we can bury "Have a nice day" right here and now.

In my March 24 column, I lamented the reflexiveness, repetitiveness and occasional insincerity of that phrase. I have nothing against nice days or those who wish them upon us, I wrote. It would just be nice to have a less labored, less hackneyed alternative.

Could readers supply one? I threw open the gates -- and hundreds of you walked through. Here are the ideas and sayings that, in my humble judgment, should leap to the head of the line.

"Go in a good way" - Angela Corley, who says it's a favorite of Native Americans.

"Ciao" -- from the Italian, of course. Thanks to Albert Materazzi, of Bethesda.

" `Mind your jollies,' with a lilt in your voice, gets many a grin. Try it," suggests Fifi Chase.

"Have a safe day" -- B.J. Settles.

"Keep the faith" -- Bill Zeigler and Aurelia de Rubis.

"Buongiorno" -- Sandy Fineberg, a receptionist at DynCorp in Alexandria, who says she uses it to excellent effect in her working life.

"Safe home" -- Emily Graves, who attends Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C.

"Be of good cheer" -- Roy Millenson, of Bethesda.

Gretta Magnus takes the cake for responses to "Have a nice day." She replies: "You find one for me, I'll have it!"

"G'day, mate" -- from Australian slang. Thanks to Ed T. Barron.

"Asalaam-alaikum!" -- Amina Shafi, president of the Islamic Awareness Club at Robert E. Lee High School in Northern Virginia. The expression translates as: "May peace be upon you!"

A plain old, "Be well" -- Tom Kreitzberg, of Silver Spring.

"What ever happened to `So long'?" asks Mike Forman.

"A former boss of mine would tell me, `Don't get locked up,' " writes Robert Worden, of Annapolis.

"Make it a good day!" -- Mabel Hazelock first, then several others very shortly.

"Stay well" -- Jan Stoorza, of Rock Point.

A mock-arrogant "Glad you got to see me!" -- L.L., of Lorton.

"Good luck in the lottery" -- Tyuana Butler.

As a comeback to H.A.N.D., Gail McCreary, of Rockville, recommends the line her 83-year-old godmother uses: "If I don't, it will be my own fault!"

To friends at work, Nancy H. Cioffi will say, "Don't work too hard." To other friends, it's, "See you later."

"Good to see you," which Lissa Soergel sees as far more sincere and far less patronizing than alternatives.

Another snappy reply to H.A.N.D.: "No, thanks, I had one a couple of years ago" -- Lt. Col. John C. Kunich, of Arlington.

"Live long and prosper" -- Michael T. Roberts, of Linthicum, Md.

"Keep it between the ditches" -- Karl Sax, who says his second choice is the famous line from the TV show "Hill Street Blues": "Be careful out there."

"No wild parties while I'm gone" -- Deanna Lavanty, of Olney, who says she has perfected this line on her 80-year-old grandmother, Delphine Duncan, of Darnestown.

"Have a day" -- Marjohn Heath, who says people who hear this line are delighted with the freedom to have "whatever type of day they may choose." Donna Will, of Herndon, suggested this one, too.

"Have a blessed day" -- Paul Good, who says it may be too religious for some tastes. Yet Paul recalls an Orange Line Metro operator who used this phrase over the loudspeaker in the late 1980s, to a good reception.

Another curmudgeonly reply, this one from Bob Noyer, of Winchester: "Every day above ground is a nice day."

"Hasta man~ana" (it means "until tomorrow" in Spanish) -- Ron Passalacqua.

"Don't overdo" -- Charles Withington, of Centreville, Md.

Finally, "Have a nice life" -- Jason Juffras.

We will try like the dickens, Jason. Thank you one and all, and have a nice . . . almost!

Will it never end?

Dale Otterness, of Arlington, writes that his wife, Linda, was on the Capital Beltway one recent morning, heading from the Tysons Corner area toward what's left of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. She saw a car going unusually slowly in one of the middle lanes -- so slow that cars were bailing out to the left and the right to get around it.

As Linda went past, "She catches a glimpse of the woman [driver] flossing her teeth," Dale writes. He adds, bitingly:

"That sure seems to be a two-handed operation."

Flynn McCoy, of Reston, says he always looks forward to July 4. That's the day he has to explain to his kids that they can't buy firecrackers, but the government can buy nuclear weapons.