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Italian word of the day: ‘Buondì'

You probably already know the difference between buongiorno and ciao, and when each should be used. But what about buondì? If you've heard this word used colloquially by Italian speakers, you might wonder where it fits in, or whether it's slang or dialect. It is a proper Italian word, and it essentially means the same thing as buongiorno - at least, when you're in a jovial mood. It's the sort of thing you might call out to colleagues when you're having a particularly good morning. Buondì, come va? Morning, how's it going? But anyone having a tough day at work would be more likely to respond to your energetic 'buondì' with a grumpy 'buongiorno'. Dì is a somewhat antiquated form of giorno. Although you might hear people use it in other contexts: Tre volte al dì Three times a day One of the translations for buondì offered by online dictionaries is 'good morrow', which sounds rather quaint and quirky to English speakers today and would sound particularly eccentric if used in everyday conversation. Dì might be in slightly more regular usage than 'morrow', but it's still probably not something you'd say in a serious situation. As for the timing, like buongiorno you'd use it in the morning or early afternoon. There's also some confusion as to whether buondì should be written as one word or two. The Italian language guardians at the Accademia della Crusca say either is correct but buon dì might be more usual. Plus there's the fact that writing it as two words sets it apart from Buondì, a popular brand of packaged breakfast biscuit. It doesn't matter all that much though, since you'll normally encounter this word in spoken, rather than written, Italian. But note the accent on the ì - you don't want to get dì mixed up with the very common Italian preposition di, which is used for various things, including to indicate possession. È il libro di Maria It's Maria's book For an example of the correct pronunciation and more discussion of the difference in meaning between buondì and buongiorno, see this Youtube clip from language teacher Lucrezia Oddone.