>>In the area of Germany I lived, it was always Gruß got.
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>Hi Tracy
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>"Grüß Gott!" - (there is our lovely ü (try to teach a german th) and the o is short so double t)
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>It might be used as a simple Hello! in there context.
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>You got the meaning? It means "God bless you". It's rather known in catholic areas in the german south. It was introduced by the catholic dergy.
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>I have problems with this, because I'm number one irreligious and find myself assaultet. Number two if any, my roots are protestant what makes it even more offensive. Don't like to be crusaded.
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>The basic rule where I life is to answer ironic: That is it unlikely that I ever met god. So I can not carry the greeting. Or something the like.
>This works because it is abbreviated and the meaning of grüssen has changed, it could be understand as "Carry a salutation to god". I'm also (known to the )
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>Since they use it as greeting rather then parting (as goodbye does) this makes communication hard.
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>See the source of all part knowlegde http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BC%C3%9F_Gott (Somebody does the work and translated it. German is a little bit larger)
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>Agnes

For the 3 years I lived in the area (Wurzburg, Schweinfurt, Gaubuttelbrun), it was used as a greeting and when departing. For both. Has it changed? I knew of the meaning, but it was really just used with no religious connotation everywhere I went.