Supermarket leaflets promoting goods to buy for Passover are headed Chag Sameach. It's pronounced Hug Sum Ay Uch (guttural like Scottish loch meaning lake). That means Happy Holidays in Hebrew. It's a greeting which can be used for a cheerful celebration. (Not for the fast day of Yom Kippur, I learned from Wikipedia. And 'Wish You Long Life', said in English, is only said to the chief mourners at Jewish funerals. That's a handy phrase thing to say, if you can't think of any suitable words and don't want to sound depressing not too jovial, but not suitable for other festive)
Usually I just wait until somebody addresses me with a greeting and reply in the same fashion. I never heard Hag Sameach as a child, but the phrase seems to be catching on.
Hag (or Chag) is Holiday. Hug hols.
Sameach - happy (I remember is as a super smiling holiday)
Two syllables sumach - (smiling) - happy
Happy holidays which is alliterative in English.
But like Hebrew writing going right to left, the noun-adjective word phrase is the opposite way round. Literally Holiday happy
All you need to remember when greeting or writing or reading an advertisement is
Chag Sameach - happy holidays
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