Recently, I had a visitor to my website who had arrived after searching in Google for:
is it correct to say happiest birthday?
It’s too late to answer this person’s question directly, but perhaps someone else might ask it in the future and come across this post.
So, is it correct to say “happiest birthday”? Well, strictly speaking, it’s not incorrect to say “happiest birthday”. It can be, however, a bit confusing.
“Happiest birthday” could have three interpretations:
- The happiest birthday you’ve had to date
- The happiest birthday of all your birthdays, past and future
- A birthday happier than anyone anywhere has ever had or ever will have
The problem with using “happiest birthday” is that the receiver of your good wishes has no idea what you’re actually wishing them. Are you telling them to have the best birthday they’ve had so far, or are you telling them that they’d better have the happiest birthday now because all the rest will be worse?
You’d probably better off just saying “happy birthday”.
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