Long time no see

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"Long time no see" is an English expression used as a greeting by people who have not seen each other for a while. Its origins in American English appear to be an imitation of broken or pidgin English,^[1] and despite its ungrammaticality it is widely accepted as a fixed expression. The phrase is a multiword expression that cannot be explained by the usual rules of English grammar due to the irregular syntax.^[2] It may derive ultimately from an English pidgin such as that spoken by Native Americans or Chinese, or an imitation of such. The lexicographer Eric Partridge notes that it is akin to the phrases "no can do" and "chop chop".^[3]

Origin

An early use of the phrase, though not as a greeting, is from Lieut.-Colonel James Campbell's Excursions, Adventures, and Field-Sports in Ceylon (published 1843): "Ma-am—long time no see wife—want go to Colombo see wife."^[4]

The earliest appearance of the phrase "long time no see" in print recorded in Oxford English Dictionary dates to 1901, found in W. F. Drannan's Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, in which a Native American man is recorded as greeting the narrator by saying, "Good morning. Long time no see you."^[1] This example is intended to reflect usage in American Indian Pidgin English.

The phrase is often portrayed as originating either in Native American or in Chinese pidgin English. It may be compared to the Cantonese phrase 好耐冇見 (Cantonese pinyin: hou2 noi6 mou5 gin3) and the Mandarin phrase 好久不見/好久不见 (hǎo jiǔ bú jiàn), which can be translated literally as "long time, no see" (or, word to word, "very long time no see"). If from Chinese pidgin, it may be of US Chinatown origin, or alternatively British Far East. Alternatively, it may have been coined by native speakers in imitation of Native American pidgin (as in the pidgin used in cinematic portrayals, as in the language spoken by the character Tonto in the 1930s).^[3]

References