Greetings, like, the greetings themselves. You know, like, Hello, Salutations, Felicitations, Heil Hitler, that kind of thing. First of all, they're kind of a pointless part of conversation, other than a bit we're going to get on in a minute (depending on how fast you read, of course.) I mean, do we really need to say, "I acknowledge that you are there. Shall we converse?" And half the time people don't even mean it to mean the shall-we-converse bit, either, anyway. They just acknowledge the other's presence, and then move on. Even waving as a form of greeting has the advantage of attracting the attention of the other in the first place, because our eyes are drawn to movement. People saying hello, except on the telephone and such, are already fully aware of the other's presence. But I suppose we have the ritually meaningful but otherwise pointless customs of congratulating people or wishing them good luck.
When something of a short conversation is meant to be initiated, however, people generally like to start the conversation off with a question. Like, you know, a "what's up?" kind of thing. I am not the biggest fan of this approach, though it does actually have any literal meaning.
It really bugs me when people greet me with a "how are you" type deal, like, "how have you been?" or "how's it going?". I am how I am, and I was how I was, and if you really want to know what's been going on in my life you should have been paying more attention to it earlier. Why should I tell you how I am? Unless I'm really super duper fantastic or ultra down in the dumps, of course, but there's no reason to report on what amounts to be an average day for me. Instead of saying, "how are you," I have a new greeting for everyone to use. Starting now.
"A penny for your thoughts."
Not nearly enough people say this anymore, if anyone actually said it in the first place. For those of us who think great thoughts, it gives us an excuse to share them, and for those of us who want to know how other people are doing, it has them share what they're doing at the moment if they're thinking about what they're doing at the moment. Everyone's happy.
There could be some kind of entire mini-economy of pennies based around this, if everyone does use it. Maybe it could be the hallmark of some kind of brand new subculture. Or maybe it could be adapted into an old subculture. Like libertarians or something. Yeah, libertarians would eat that crap up. But, I stress to stress, you don't have to be a libertarian to do it; they'd just be one of the groups who do do it.
A penny for my thoughts, right now? I should really get a PayPal or something, so people can ask me that over the intertubes.
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