Wishing You Well

Wishing You Well Wishing You Well Wishing You Well By Maeve Maddox A reader has written to express her astonishment at the following usage in an office memo: Please come to the Open House to give [so-and-so] your well-wishes in person. Where, wonders the reader, did the person who wrote the memo get the expression â€Å"well-wishes†? Thought I, â€Å"Where indeed?† My first move was to do a Web search to see how common this use of well-wishes might be. First I searched â€Å"well wishes† in quotations. Results: about 1,290,000. I found numerous examples on entertainment and sports sites: Seinfeld cast sends well-wishes to terminally ill fan Reese Witherspoon Sends Well Wishes to Newlywed Sofia Veragara NFL Players send prayers, well-wishes to Rams receiver Stedman Bailey after shooting Rutgers coach Kyle Flood sends well-wishes to Minnesotas Jerry Kill No surprise there, I thought. People who write about sports and entertainment are not always models of standard usage. Let’s see if I can find examples in sources noted for more formal usage: The London Telegraph: Jubilee concert goers send well wishes to Prince Philip A Vancouver hospital: Send  well wishes  by email to your friend or family member staying in one of our hospitals below. The Wall Street Journal: Firms across the world have begun the time-honored tradition of sending well wishes and gifts to their investors. The New York Times:   Entering an election year with the well wishes of both parties, Mr. Ryan will not be pushing legislation simply to send a message of ardent conservatism. Hmm. This, I saw, was a case for my two dictionaries. Merriam-Webster Unabridged well-wish noun: a good or kindly wish Oxford English Dictionary well wish noun: An instance of wishing well to someone or something; an expression of this, a good wish. The earliest OED citation is dated 1595. The most recent is from a biography of Lincoln published in 2009: â€Å"His return was not greeted with the well wishes of the press and public with which he had left for Washington.† No doubt about it, the forms well wishes and well-wishes are regarded as standard British and American usage. Although- in defense of the reader’s feelings and my own- the OED notes that well wishes is â€Å"now less common than best or good wishes.† Further, a comparison search of â€Å"well wishes† and â€Å"good wishes† on the Ngram Viewer shows well wishes hugging the bottom of the graph. Bottom line: Although well-wishes sounds nonstandard to me and I won’t use it, I cannot criticize its use in the memos or headlines of others. Oddly enough, â€Å"well wishes† strikes me as unidiomatic, but â€Å"get well wishes† does not. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:English Grammar 101: All You Need to KnowOn Behalf Of vs. In Behalf Of15 Names and Descriptions of Effects