() is a Brabantic parting phrase which originated in the Dutch province North Brabant and is widely used there, but has spread to Limburg, the south of Gelderland and even to parts of Belgium. has been derived from the Brabantic sentence (Standard Dutch: ). This sentence can be translated to Take care (of yourself). Thus is the Dutch equivalent of something like Take care and as such is used in the same manner, i.e. given when saying goodbye to someone to wish them well.
In Western parts of North Brabant people do not pronounce the H, there people say instead of . This phenomenon is called H deletion and is most prevalent in and around Roosendaal and Breda.
There are a few theories that claim an alternative origin of the word . The first one being that the word comes from the French word . Some French words, from the short time that the Netherlands was ruled by France, have remained in the Brabantic dialect, thus it is possible that the French word has bastardized over time to form the greeting "". The other possible theory that explains the origins of the word is that it is a remnant of time of the Spanish Netherlands. In this case it would be the Spanish greeting that might have transformed to "".
The word also bears resemblance to the Swedish greeting to say goodbye, .
Contrary to a popular assumption, has not been derived from the English language short sentence How do you do?.
There are a few (mostly local) variations to , like and , but is the prominently used one. In Antwerp the full term (from ) is frequently used, often followed by (from , which roughly means and until I see you again).
In 2005 the newspapers Brabants Dagblad, Eindhovens Dagblad and BN/De Stem organized an election for the most beautiful Brabantic word, which was won by the word .NU.nl Nieuws (2005): ''Houdoe' mooiste Brabantse woord ', 5 juni 2005, info verkregen op 30 december 2006.
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