"всего доброго" or "всего хорошего"?

Question

Which of the two is the right term to say when saying goodbye to someone, "всего доброго" or "всего хорошего"?

(I know there are many other terms for "goodbye", or "all the best")

I usually say "всего доброго" to older people, and I find that many will be quick to answer "всего хорошего" sounding more like they are correcting me, instead of just answer back with "you too" or "всего доброго"

So my question is, am I saying the wrong one? Should I be saying "всего хорошего" instead? Or is it that people are simply answering without thinking that it's different then what I just said?

Answer 1

To my ear всего доброго sounds a bit higher in register than всего хорошего and so i myself make sure to not use it in everyday speech. Not to speak of the fact that the expression itself in either of the variants isn't particularly colloquial.

The people who reply with the different variant maybe do so in order to not sound repetitive, just for the sake of variety.

Again to get the idea of what's more acceptable (and in which contexts) it might be useful to review instances of either of the phrases in the Corpus of Russian language.

I don't think you should switch to another variant, the difference between them isn't that critical.

Answer 2

I'm in my mid-thirties, I always say всего доброго, and I have the impression it's generally the more common one, but I can't say I've been paying attention.

There's definitely nothing wrong with всего доброго. For what it's worth, my first association with всего хорошего is a once-popular Soviet song (from way before my time) where it's used passive-aggressively:

Сняла решительно пиджак наброшенный,

Казаться гордою хватило сил,

Ему сказала я: - Всего хорошего, -

А он прощения не попросил.

That probably doesn't matter much; the point is, for всего доброго, I can't think of even such inconsequential baggage it may have. So they're probably answering without thinking.

P.S. An afterthought: if you speak with an accent, perhaps it's precisely because they want to avoid sounding like they're correcting or phonetically "one-upping" you, that they say something different.