The main character of The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, is Nobody Owens. Nobody, called Bod, is an orphan who escaped the murder of his family. His parents and siblings were killed by "the man Jack," and Bod survived by wandering away and into a graveyard. When he arrived there, a lady ghost protected him and decided that he should live in the graveyard but have the freedom to walk among both living and dead. This lady ghost and her equally spectral husband raise Bod in the graveyard, and he learns many supernatural powers from his ghost companions. Though Bod's childhood is unusual, he makes friends with both the living and the dead, and is well provided for by Silas, who can move among the living with ease. Throughout the course of the book, Bod must confront the man who killed his family as well as the fact that he cannot stay among the dead forever.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
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