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0 pointsPhasmaFelis7y ago0 comments

> 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.

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gnode7y ago· 1 in thread

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.

PhasmaFelisOP7y ago

Sometimes, yeah. In the US I've seen it go both ways, so it's not a hard and fast rule, but it does seem to be a thing.

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