Goodbye, cruel world
- idiom
- Informal
:
adiós, cruel mundo
- He shouted 'Goodbye, cruel world!' before dramatically pretending to leave the party.
Examples
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Whenever something went wrong, he would sigh and say, 'Goodbye, cruel world,' to make his friends laugh.
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After losing the competition, she texted her friends, 'Goodbye, cruel world,' though she was only joking.
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He sighed, Goodbye, cruel world!
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After the bad news, she dramatically declared, Goodbye, cruel world!
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After losing the competition, she texted her friends, 'Goodbye, cruel world,' though she was only joking.
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He shouted 'Goodbye, cruel world!' before dramatically pretending to leave the party.
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Whenever something went wrong, he would sigh and say, 'Goodbye, cruel world,' to make his friends laugh.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally combines 'goodbye' (a farewell) with 'cruel world', so a learner who knows the constituents can readily infer it is a farewell expressing despair or resignation. However, the conventionalized pragmatic nuances — its dramatic, hyperbolic, or sometimes humorous use and the possible implication of dying or leaving entirely — are idiomatic and not fully predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Goodbye, cruel world began as a loud, dramatic line in old plays where a character shouted goodbye to the cruel world before making a big exit. So, its strong image of leaving everything makes people use it now to 'pretend to be very upset' or to joke when things go wrong.
