"How are you"?

[SomeDisciple]

If somebody, especially a stranger, opens a conversation with "How are you?", I will treat it as a greeting- a bit of an awkward greeting- but it is completely acceptable as a greeting; and therefore I will reply with a greeting- usually a customary one like "Hello" or "hi" in a friendly way. Normally this will conclude with the person and I having each others' attention and getting down to the business of whatever they wanted to discuss.

What is NOT acceptable, is when after I return the greeting, they say "How are you?" a second time. If you use that as a greeting, you can't follow up with it again as an actual question. You may use some other greeting; and then follow up with "How are you?"- that is fine. OR you can greet with "How are you?" and then rephrase the actual inquiry in a less vague way- like "are you enjoying the weather today?"; but if you say "how are you?" twice, I will treat the second one as a second greeting, and return the greeting the second time in a less friendly way.

 

[MsMediator]

If a stranger asks, such as a cashier, I usually respond to the question, such as I'm doing good/ok/not bad/etc., and return the question. I think not responding to the question is slightly unfriendly to begin with (or the person just doesn't want to respond), so I can't imagine why someone would repeat the question. I think how are you is a bit more than a greeting.

 

[Lynx]

What is hilarious is when you say hi and he replies with doing just fine. Where do you go from there?

 

[Eli1]

Ah yes.
Small talk with interesting word choices.

How about this, when my mom goes for cancer treatment they ask her: how are you?

Ummm she has cancer and she’s tired - I tell this to the nurse because she can’t even talk.
Then she says: oh I’m so sorry.

Sorry? Lady you work here and you deal with cancer patients all day. This is news to you?

Small talk.

 

[SomeDisciple]

Sorry? Lady you work here and you deal with cancer patients all day. This is news to you?

Right? Like that is an epic fail of situational awareness. It makes you wonder if she knew what year it was, or maybe if she knew her own name.

 

[SomeDisciple]

What is hilarious is when you say hi and he replies with doing just fine. Where do you go from there?

Exactly! It's very awkward. I suppose maybe they want to fast forward to the end of the "how are you?" inquiries; but I typically don't ask how people are doing as a pleasantry anyway- so, it's double awkward to me, because not only did I not ask; but I was never going to ask unless there was a reason to believe that things were somehow remarkable.

 

[Texasgal]

If somebody, especially a stranger, opens a conversation with "How are you?", I will treat it as a greeting- a bit of an awkward greeting- but it is completely acceptable as a greeting; and therefore I will reply with a greeting- usually a customary one like "Hello" or "hi" in a friendly way. Normally this will conclude with the person and I having each others' attention and getting down to the business of whatever they wanted to discuss.

What is NOT acceptable, is when after I return the greeting, they say "How are you?" a second time. If you use that as a greeting, you can't follow up with it again as an actual question. You may use some other greeting; and then follow up with "How are you?"- that is fine. OR you can greet with "How are you?" and then rephrase the actual inquiry in a less vague way- like "are you enjoying the weather today?"; but if you say "how are you?" twice, I will treat the second one as a second greeting, and return the greeting the second time in a less friendly way.

How would you react if a total stranger approached you, let’s say it was me, and asked you: “Hey there, friend, tell me your innermost secrets!”

 

[SomeDisciple]

How would you react if a total stranger approached you, let’s say it was me, and asked you: “Hey there, friend, tell me your innermost secrets!”

Innermost? You mean, do I have to take a dump right now?

I think I know what you mean, though- it sounds like they are creepily probing by asking twice.

 

[Texasgal]

Innermost? You mean, do I have to take a dump right now?

This is when the gen z folks would have said “TMI”?

 

[Karlon]

If somebody, especially a stranger, opens a conversation with "How are you?", I will treat it as a greeting- a bit of an awkward greeting- but it is completely acceptable as a greeting; and therefore I will reply with a greeting- usually a customary one like "Hello" or "hi" in a friendly way. Normally this will conclude with the person and I having each others' attention and getting down to the business of whatever they wanted to discuss.

What is NOT acceptable, is when after I return the greeting, they say "How are you?" a second time. If you use that as a greeting, you can't follow up with it again as an actual question. You may use some other greeting; and then follow up with "How are you?"- that is fine. OR you can greet with "How are you?" and then rephrase the actual inquiry in a less vague way- like "are you enjoying the weather today?"; but if you say "how are you?" twice, I will treat the second one as a second greeting, and return the greeting the second time in a less friendly way.

in recent years, my comical answer is, "i'm poor, stupid & hungry". i giggle at their response. my real answers are: "I'm sunny today", "I'm fine", "i'm joyous in the Lord", etc. your weather statement: i tell people just as they say, "great weather today", you should be saying, "how is your life in Jesus these days"?

 

[MsMediator]

Ah yes.
Small talk with interesting word choices.

How about this, when my mom goes for cancer treatment they ask her: how are you?

Ummm she has cancer and she’s tired - I tell this to the nurse because she can’t even talk.
Then she says: oh I’m so sorry.

Sorry? Lady you work here and you deal with cancer patients all day. This is news to you?

Small talk.

Personally I wouldn't take offense at what the nurse said. Most nurses are genuinely caring, and I wouldn't like a nurse who skipped this question. A nurse is also supposed to ask this to put in the charts, and pass this info to the doctor. I know from my own doctor visits (or nearly any interaction for that matter, such as hair, cashier, etc.), nearly all of them start with how are you doing from the other person.

 

[Eli1]

Personally I wouldn't take offense at what the nurse said. Most nurses are genuinely caring, and I wouldn't like a nurse who skipped this question. A nurse is also supposed to ask this to put in the charts, and pass this info to the doctor. I know from my own doctor visits (or nearly any interaction for that matter, such as hair, cashier, etc.), nearly all of them start with how are you doing from the other person.

Believe me, i've been dealing with this for almost 5 years now.
And before that, before i got to know nurses and patients more intimately since you share a room where you hear things about the other patients sometimes, i knew the levels and types of nurses because i used to go there to fix computers.
On almost every treatment, i buy a jug of coffee for all the nurses on the floor and i forgive all the nurses who aren't "nice" because i know that it's either not their God-given gift to be nice or it's because they get stressed out.
In either case, i sometimes allow myself to say things to them when i also have a stressed day and i have some noob assistant who barely speaks English greeting patients at the door and they ask dumb questions to a patient with cancer.

But the question in these cases should be started with "Are you in any pain today?".
Because you're at a hospital helping people who are dealing with cancer.

 

[Eli1]

The other fun part to this when people say interesting choice words is when they say the word "provider".
I'm like 'what's a provider?'
- Oh it's a doctor
- Oh, i thought you meant like a cell phone provider or something because for a minute there i got confused and i thought i was at a hospital.

Provider.
Word of the day.

 

[Eli1]

lol and look at this:



In-line with what i've seen myself here in US for close to 30 years about the English language degrading to meaningless words as my friend @GWH likes to use and other folks at Harvard, i can say with prophetic certainty that the English language will devolve into Egyptian hieroglyphics in the far future where people will communicate with emojis instead.


- Means "How are you?"
- Means "Not good"

 

[NightTwister]

The literal translation of `come stai`? in Italian to English is "How do you stay?" Never ask an Italian "How are you?" unless you want to be there for a long time.

 

[Eli1]

The literal translation of `come stai`? in Italian to English is "How do you stay?" Never ask an Italian "How are you?" unless you want to be there for a long time.

 

[Texasgal]

Oh man, this reminds me of that old Pepsi commercial ‘Comin’ alive’ or something by drinking Pepsi…in Germany it didn’t ring well lol. Lost in translation and all the bells and whistles.

 

[Texasgal]

In east Texas a lot of people just say ‘how be you’.

 

[SomeDisciple]

lol and look at this:

That is really sad; and poor stewardship by people I would expect to act as a sort of custodian of language.

I can see it now; some academic idiot, sitting there with his notepad, observing internet trolls spitballing on the internet- and he's taking them all seriously like "Oh, this is a very interesting evolution of speech... I must record this!".

This is exactly how civilization spirals down into darkness.

 

[ThereRoseaLamb]

Right? Like that is an epic fail of situational awareness. It makes you wonder if she knew what year it was, or maybe if she knew her own name.

Some people really stink at conversations? I was traveling in a certain place I won't name but they had an odd way of conversing. I call it the "run by" conversation. They don't stop, and they don't listen. They just keep saying what they want to say as they walk by you. Oddest thing. And the whole place did it. I'd wave at their back as they left "bye, good talk, see ya". smh