h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It doesn't apply anymore, let's face it. The question applied to people in the 1950's and dwindled after then.


We need to replace it with the ubiquitous

'Sake!!
(or with more exclamation marks)

which can be said in as many if not more tones of voice than how-are-you---I'm-fine, which hints at a 'hands-off, everything is under control' attitude. This is also very superficial.

It is very relevant to today's thinking and everything, and it probably has 42 hidden in it somewhere. If anything that isn't already in a permanent state of change or repair, it will be before long. So this is a better greeting or acknowledgement or other.

Well that's a new one for me. Never heard it used.

Myself, I don't use the 'How are you' greeting unless I really want to know. I think it is very over used, inappropriately. What's wrong with Hello/Good morning/Hi & similar variations according to the circumstances?

I get the 'How are you?' greeting all the time.

I've never yet used the 'Tired. I didn't sleep well and my knee hurts still. I'd rather be anywhere but here' response. Frankly, the enquirer doesn't (usually) want to know.

I usually greet people with a plain 'Good morning.' Unless of course, someone I'm genuinely concerned about and who I know has been ill or upset.

PP.

I usually say "Hi," or talk about what a nice day it is, or make a joke about the rain.

If anyone says 'Sake!!', I assume the preceding two words were inaudibly voiced.

Heh, that was my first response. I've also never heard 'Sake! as a greeting.


My usual response to "How are you [doing]?" is "I could complain, but no one would listen."



I'd like us to retire the even more pointless but socially required "bless you/gesundheit" after a sneeze.
I'm now sometimes rude about it when people "bless" me. I try to politely respond that I'm not superstitious and that I'd prefer no response, but the person inevitably seems offended that I didn't accept their magic words of healing.


The problem for me isn't just some militant atheism (I'm not militant about it), it's that I typically sneeze in pairs if it's just a typical nasal irritation and not an actual cold or allergy response, and if someone "blesses" me before I get the second one out it often goes away leaving me rather... discombobulated.

Yes it is very over-used, and could even be a cultural invention to get regular consent to everything. It is very lazy in more than one way: "let's make you the subject to be discussed"; "if you say everything is right, you're half way there". That last one may be stretching it a bit, but maybe not.

A greeting is more honest.

There are some good answers if asked this, please say if you think of any: "I just haven't died yet" which is playing with the word 'How', making it into "How is it that you exist?" The answer could instead be "All attempts failed, I got them FIRST!"; My favourite that I dare use is "Somehow...." on the same lines. Not sure how many get it and don't care for those.

Of course, if genuinely meant the question is OK.

oh noes. I'm in Spain just now and if someone took away my "Como estas", "muy bien", I'd lose about 30% of my vocabulary.

¡Dios mío!

ir a freír espárragos!

I had asparagus yesterday and my wee still smells horrid.

I didn't mention this this morning when I was asked 'How are you.'

PP.

It's a Spanish idiom, similar in intent to "go fly a kite" or "go jump in a lake"

I was being funny

The over-use is related to the same pseudo-clever mentality that says "SPEAKING!" when a telephone caller asks for them, at the start of a conversation. Another 'great' is someone rudely saying "YEAH YEAH YEAH!" (not a reference to a Beatles song) when agreeing with someone but wanting to do all the talking. Another 'great' is male managers wearing pink shirts, and the worst cases of that are when it has been a suggestion from higher managers to wear pink. The smugness chokes people as they ooze past. The 'how-are-you---I'm-fine" similar to these is a 'trick' that is meant to put their victim on the wrong foot, to make them the subject to be discussed. All defensive and probably inspired by glamorous gangster films.

Is "How's it going?" better? It at least puts the emphasis on what's been happening, not the person you're speaking to.

Potential for a Guide Entry here on casual greetings from around the world.

An Iraqi I worked with in the 1980s used to say 'Shoo yabbah' or 'Eish yabbah' as a casual greeting to the other Arabic-speaking guys on the team. He told me once it was used in a film in which the local warlords would cruise the streets of Beirut in their pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns and yell this greeting at each other.

Noticed that, and my answer is "all still to go" or similar, meaning that the full shift is yet to be worked.

wibble

One of those would suit a neighbour of mine (answer regarding the cruising trucks).

I have no idea what the first post was about.