This morning, I was watching NBC's morning show (note that I don't call it a news program) and they were doing a story on a guy and his kids getting lost out in the wilderness for a few days. They were recuperating in the hospital and when asked how they were doing, the relative they were interviewing said that "they're doing fantastic". Really? Recuperating from exposure and they're doing fantastic? I think that if it was me I'd be doing well but fantastic brings up images of instead of laying in bed and recovering that they chose instead to do hand stands and cartwheels and were just exuding vitality. This society of ours seems to be incapable of understanding something unless there are superlatives attached to them. When someone asks 'how are you?' and I say "good" they say "just good?" or if I say "OK" their response is "just OK?" you know, as if OK or good is bad or something. Unless something's AWESOME or FANTASTIC then it's not so good. What are we, a bunch of valley girls?
Oh i don't know... all things are relative, right? Lets say i was going into the hospital with exposure like that... What are the possible outcomes? Well, i'm probably likely to live, so we don't have to worry about that... But i could have frostbite that would claim fingers or toes - that might give me a pretty rotten day. Ir the doctors could take a look and say i'm not going to lose anything... I think that might raise my day up to fantastic. After all, i was rescued and won't have any long term problems. I'd be pretty upbeat and probably riding on a wave of endorphins due to my good fortune.
Oh sure, bring it back on topic...what fun is that? But I agree with you, things can be relative. If I'm the sole survivor of a horrific plane crash and am able to move my fingers and toes and can eat solid food I'm doing "fantastic". If I stub my toe and it's slightly sore I'm doing "Ok". But to agree, for the most part, with the OP the superlatives do seem to get overused. I too don't respond too dramatically when people ask how I'm doing...I usually say "alright" and that's immediately interpreted as "something bad is going on" when, in reality, it means just what I said. I'm doing 'alright'..normal, just like most days, nothing special, nothing bad and I'm not going to embellish just so you feel better about asking. To carry that a step further I rarely ask people I see every day "how ya doin'?" It's a set up for a standard reply..."I'm great". I say "Hi". Now folks I haven't seen for a while I do ask "How are you doing?"...but with an air of genuine interest b/c I am genuinely interested...I want to catch up, here if their life has gone well, in general, of the months that have passed, etc.
how hard is it to say "they're doing fine" or "they're progressing well" anyway? pff. even on a good day i usually say i'm doing just fine. i hate when people pry about it too... i said i'm fine, now shut up!
I'm totally with you, JD. People ask me how I'm doing and my likely responses are: "Well, yourself?" "Could be better..." to which they respond, "Oh what's wrong?" I say "Nothing out of the ordinary. I could be worse too." "Do you really want to know, because I'll tell you." After which they either leave me in disgust at my cynical attitude, or they stick around while I tell them the details of my life. Actually, I'm not that cynical. I do try to avoid superlatives and hyperbole in speech, in much the same way as I try to avoid overuse of gasoline while driving. But as with her driving habits, my wife's use of hyperbole in speech balances the pair of us back to about average
When people ask 'How are you?', I don't think most of them really want to know. So, we make something up, like 'fine', instead of giving them a litany of complaints that sounds like whining. A list of superlatives is like a happy shiny 'TV face' that's obnoxious in person. Whoa, dude, did you say valley girl? Exactly!
Exactly! "How are you?" is more often a polite greeting rather than a real inquiry. Literal meanings are less common than conventional ones. When the checkout girl at the supermarket asks "How are you?" I know what she really means is, "Hi. I'm being polite to you because it's store policy." My reply is usually something like, "Pretty well, thanks. How are you?" Which means, "Hi. I appreciate your conventional courtesy, and I'm being equally polite because if I said 'You don't really care,' I'd seem like a weirdo and on Wednesdays I choose not to make myself appear to be a weirdo." The OP is fortunate to be speaking with people who care enough about the response to treat it as a real answer. When a friend asks "How are you?" I'm more likely to tell them that considering the state of the world and the horrible illnesses other people are suffering, I'm pretty well by comparison, aside from the fact that I need a total body transplant. And then I ask how they are.
Generally the 2 standard replies I choose between if things are "normal?" "average?" are: "Better than they day my dog died, but not as good as my wedding day." or "I'm alive, and I'm employed, that's got to count for something."
Well, obviously! That's my current pet peeve: the overuse of the word 'obvious' and it's various forms. Also, when asked how I'm doing: "lookin' good; feellin' fine; smellin' sweet." And when someone compliments my tie or my jacket I say, "yeah, it's a thing I'm doing: I'm bringing sexy back."
i think if i were looking at being in their shoes, having gone thru an extended period of time imagining the worst, to have them alive might be great to me. frankly i dont understand what the OP is getting at.
I believe the origin or original intent of the question is that of a polite greeting. And the polite answer is "fine" or "good" and maybe followed by an "and how are you doing?". But really, the answer doesn't matter. Problem is when people take the question or response literally (they didn't get the memo). Chinese have a similar greeting, and one which is definitely not to be taken literally: "Have you eaten rice yet?"
My favorite response to "how are you?" is an old country expression that I've heard a few people use. They'll answer "I'm finer than frog hair." One doctor friend of mine had an even funnier variation of it that went, "Finer than frog hair split four ways!" That THAT's pretty darned fine
