I'm the same way! I have to train myself not to think when people give a casual "hey, how are you?".
The book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts" has an interesting message about how introverts struggle to fit into an image of society where one must be a quick-witted extrovert in order to be successful and powerful. I think it's the same for fast vs slow thinkers. It's important to know your a slow thinker, and accept it as a strength.
You would be surprised how often people don't even notice if you respond to "hey, how are you", with "hi".
But, really, the script you're meant to follow goes like this:
Hey how are you?
Hey, good, how about you?
Pretty good
Then, if the conversation is meant to continue, which it most often is not, one of you says "So ... what's up in your life?" or "So ... how's that thing you're working on going?" or some other more specific question.
Edit: let’s also not forget that “howdy” is a shortened version of “how do you do”
"Ça va." translates "It's going well", not "it is".
Similarly, "Ça va?" translates to "Is it going well?".
It's as meaningless an exchange as most greetings (the only meaning being to actually acknowledge and greet the person), but it does mean something literally, and the exchange is technically more complete than when answering "How are you?" with "Hi".
That being said, you'll see someone answering "Salut, ça va?" with "Salut!" quite frequently as well. I would perhaps consider it slightly more of a misstep than in English, but only marginally so.
The literal translation of “Ça va” is neither “it is” nor “it goes well”, right? The literal translation is “it goes”. “It goes well” would be “ça va bien”, which is also used for both question and answer parts of a slightly longer standard greeting.
This isn’t a big distinction because I agree with both of you about the relative meaninglessness of the content of such a greeting in either language.
As a question it does literally translate to “How’s it going?” and then as a response it’s like “It’s going”, but translating common idioms like this completely literally word-by-word doesn’t really make sense. It’s sort of interesting to think about for the same reason that all idioms are interesting, but it’s not very helpful when it comes to translation.
Am I the only one that answers, "how's it going?" With "it goes."?
Because I definitely do that. I'd expect that to be a common idiom in any language. Somewhat surprised to read this exchange seeming to suggest otherwise.
I don't disagree with you, and in fact I believe the point of the GP to be exactly this -- these idioms' literal interpretations are a bit nonsensical. I was merely trying to point out that I think you two agree.
So the above exchange would literally translate to:
Hello, it goes?
It goes, and you?
It goes.
I guess it's no more banal than answering "how's it going" with "it's going", which isn't that uncommon for people to say. Answering "how's it going" with "not bad, yourself?" isn't really any better either.
It's not meaningless, it's just not informational. It does not convey new information, it carries social bonding instead. If you want to know more about it, read Eric Berne's books, e.g. Games People Play.
I worked/lived in France for some time earlier in my career, you can just use ca va. No real need for salut or the et toi. I had this conversation many mornings in the office. Ca is closer to "it goes" than "it is" in this context. Va being the same as in Spanish.
Absolutely not. In case it's someone you don't know a colleague, you open a communication channel allowing them to switch to a different topic and indicating you are not currently busy or annoyed (in which case you would have added it to the "ca va" - "ca va, mais un peu presse/occupe en ce moment").
If it's someone you know well or who knows you, in the timings of responses and the expression of the face you are able to pick up how they're feeling, if something is going on in their lives or is bothering them.
It's much less scripted than the American "hi, how are you", which can only have one answer and always need to have the same expression.
As well, the South African “howzit”, which from my observation isn’t even actually a question but just invites the other person to say what they wanted to say.
In Germany, people say "Na?" or "Na du?" to which the other person usually responds the same.
It's not easy to translate but I think it's quite similar to the greetings mentioned above. Literally it's something like: Well? You? (and not 'well' in the sense of goodness, but rather questioning)
It's an interesting greeting and as a foreigner seemed very odd at first.
> You would be surprised how often people don't even notice if you respond to "hey, how are you", with "hi".
It's not that they don't notice, it's that "How are you" can be read as either a question or a greeting in modern English.
It's even more pronounced with other phrases. If you're introduced to three people and they respond "Hi", "Hello", "What's up?", it's understood that they're all pretty much saying the same thing.
I've heard that this is more common with American English, and that Americans are sometimes a bit taken aback when the response is "I'm well, how about you?" or something taking the question more literally like that.
I always forget the "how about you" part. Somebody asks, "how are you", and I say "good" because I'm supposed to say _something_ and my wife reminds me later that it was rude not to ask how they were so that they could say "good", too.
In linguistics, a phatic expression /ˈfætɪk/ is communication which serves a social function, such as social pleasantries that don't seek or offer any information of value.[1] Phatic expressions are a socio-pragmatic function and are used in everyday conversational exchange typically expressed in situational instances that call for social cues.[2] In speech communication the term means "small talk" (conversation for its own sake) and has also been called "grooming talking."[3]
I'd like to think I'd enthusiastically engage in a question like that. But in reality I think I'd find it extremely off-putting and would want to leave the conversation.
There's this sort of...meme, I suppose, of perfect dialogue. You can see it a lot in the way movie characters talk to each other, especially the ones who are supposed to be intellectual. Think of characters like Tyrion Lannister, Robert Ford, Chuck Rhoades or Andy Dufresne.
They're not just preternaturally witty - they have excellent rhetorical poise. They don't open conversations directly, they gracefully meander to their point with some kind of obscure arcana or quiet intensity. They're theatrical in their delivery and flush with metaphors, analogies or double entendres.
That's the way I feel about questions like, "Is your life a rich tapestry?" That's not a question that's asked or spoken, it's a question that's written. It's so pointed and so raw that, at best, you'd think the asker is eccentric. If you're less charitable you'd think they're simply socially awkward. Opening conversations that way is flying too close to the Sun.
I feel that the best way to answer that question is to turn away from the person asking, as if lost in thought. Then you'd make your way to your answer circuitously, by first deflecting to talk about the origin of the word "tapestry" itself alongside some powerful childhood memory about your father or a famous quote made on the eve of war. Finally, you'd arrive at a delightfully disarming answer that gives a real insight into your life and experience.
But in actuality I'd probably be asked that at a social gathering and respond with some sort of befuddled, "Er, what do you mean?" while being utterly taken aback at the penetrating intimacy of the question. Later on I'd probably ask someone, "Hey what's up with that guy, did he self-help book big on provocative conversation starters or something?"
If you really want to go down the route of non-traditional greetings, I'd recommend, "What have you been reading lately?" or "What are you about?" They still require some situational awareness, but they're a lot less risky and polarizing. I enjoyed being asked those when I first heard them.
I would not like to put random people on the spot like that. That is frankly a supremely inconsiderate thing to ask along the lines of "Are you wealthy?" "Do you have a lot of sex?". Fine if your answer happens to be yes, or fine if you happen to be quick with some deflecting come-back about the metaphorical "interesting times". At least now, thanks to this post, I can -slowly, haha- develop an angle on an answer, along the lines of "Well it might have been uniformly bland today, but now it's got at least one bad bit to break up the monotony, being asked an inconsiderate personal question like that, especially with you not being my mom or my therapist." Or maybe just ask right back "Is your wife's sex life a rich tapestry?"
Therapists are people you request for such help. Parents are among the very few other people with any right to offer it unsolicited.
Would you really accept being asked my imaginary question about your spouses sex life from any ordinary aquaintence? Why not? It's free help! You should always want your spouse to have as full and rich a life as possible, and it's too easy to forget that a big part of their life is actually subject to your level of effort and imagination and bravery.
The original question is essentially personal on the order that we usually place on sexual or health matters.
The best word is "inconsiderate" in that it literally fails to consider, or considers and ignores, that many, perhaps most people's honest answer would have to be no, and further, the process of being asked and answering forces everyone who had to answer "no" or "not enough", to recognize that "no" isn't just a harmless answer like what flavor of ice cream you like, where chocolate or vanilla or "I don't like ice cream" are all equally fine. No they are forced to confront that "no" is a failing, and therefor that they fail at something, and that what they fail at is nothing too important, just life itself.
I used to have trouble with this question, until a helpful person pointed out that the person asking almost always doesn't actually care about the answer. It never dawned on me that people would ask questions without caring about the answer, but I knew he was right as soon as he said it. Now, I can just say "fine" and get on with my day.
This is an important distinction. I'm super slow when it comes to "unimportant" questions (how are you, what do you want to eat), but rather fast when it comes to questions I deem more important. Try as I might, I don't that I'll ever be quick to answer the questions I'm "bad" at.
> I'm the same way! I have to train myself not to think when people give a casual "hey, how are you?".
I know, right?
I knew I couldn't be the only person around that gets annoyed when other ask this of me and I have to divert resources the answer the annoyingly irrelevant question.
even more so when after careful considering and answering, the answer is essentially ignored. every. time.
That's how I see it, and there'd be no point if no further information is exchanged. As a sibling comment says, some people use it more like a ping, where I'm uncomfortable using something other than a more traditional greeting:
That is to say, when passing someone in a hall, I want to stick to "hi" or "good morning", and feel uncomfortable if the other person says "how are you?". If it's the start of a conversation, "How are you?" works absolutely fine.
I think the problem is that "How are you?" doesn't finish an exchange nicely. You can easily greet someone in passing with
A: "Hi"
B: "Hi"
<EOL>
It doesn't work (for me, at least) to go
A: "How are you?"
B: "(Fine.) How are you?"
A: (optional)"Fine"
If A responds fine, it feels almost rude to abrubtly finish a conversation that had previously involved both parties asking questions about each other (even though they're really just being used as greetings). If A doesn't respond at all, that's rude for not responding to a question!
It depends, as a conversation starter it is probably okay. As an entire conversation it is almost entirely pointless, basically 2 people acknowledging that the other still exists.
I can't fathom why you've been down-voted on this comment! I feel the exact same way and I think you've elaborated on the parent's comment in a usefully specific way.
And I, too, find the exchange irritating and have now taken to a stock response of "hi" as a form of "nonviolent resistance"[01] to the question!
The book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts" has an interesting message about how introverts struggle to fit into an image of society where one must be a quick-witted extrovert in order to be successful and powerful. I think it's the same for fast vs slow thinkers. It's important to know your a slow thinker, and accept it as a strength.