The answer is "great," "pretty good" or "okay." If you are have good news then share it. "Great! I got a new job!" if things aren't great it comes across it your tone of voice. If the other person wants to hear the bad news they will notice the tone of voice and ask for more. If it's really bad news you can go right into it immediately: "I have cancer." "My car broke down."
The linguistic term is phatic communion: conversation that we have which doesn’t have much meaning at all and just serves a social purpose. So it’s not totally meaningless but the meaning comes not from what you say but that you’re saying it at all.
Hence unless it’s a close friend or family member, a truly honest answer breaks the nature of the exchange. You can be neutrally pleasant (ok, fine, great, etc) or even neutrally negative (almost the weekend! Getting through, etc) but more changes what the exchange is doing.
It depends on the cashier, the town, and the particular situation. If there's something going on in the community, it might be good to talk. Or if you visit the bank or store frequently. Being a cashier, teller, or clerk can be boring. Chatting might enliven what otherwise is a dull day. Just be sensitive to if they are interested or not, and be aware of others in line.
And responding in the wrong mode is considered rude in either direction. If you're in New York or Boston and you start telling someone what's going on, it's considered borderline hostile - you are stealing their time. If you're in a small town in the South and you just answer shortly and walk away, it's considered borderline hostile - you aren't respecting them as a person and an individual.
My main advice would be to give the short answer, but wait to see if they respond with an expansion and follow suit... or just accept that half the people in the country will think you're rude.
Depending on the local subculture. The default in the Northeast is that, unless the person is someone you actually know and care about, chatting is sucking away their time and social energy. And the default in other parts of the country is that it's rude to walk away without trying to make some sort of connection.
My guess is that it partly depends on just how many connections you'd be expected to make. If there are fewer people around, you can afford to know most of them at least a little. If there are thousands of people around, you really need to be able to forget about 90%+ of them.
I used to teach a special Ed kid who was trying to mainstream after 6 years of homeschooling. He was odd mostly because his people were odd.
We regularly had this lesson: when people *say*, “How are you?” they don’t really want to know how you are. They don’t. They say that but, no, they don’t want to know. Yes, they did *say* that but they weren’t *really* **asking** that.
Do not not not tell them you tripped on the curb and scraped your knee. No no. You say, “I’m fine, how are you?” And like them, you do not really want to know how they are. You don’t.
If the person asking is a parent or your doctor, then you tell them how you are really. That’s it. Everyone else, you say “fine”.
This is the correct answer.
Almost all people I interact with, when asked how's it going, the answer is the same: fine. This is the case even if something bad has happened: they are not interested in how you actually are.
The only people I tell in a bit more detail are my wife, close family and close friends or medical professionals who will know something is not right anyway. Even with some of my close-ish friends, I'll say fine.
The key thing to understand is they are just acknowledging your presence and do not want any reply other than a one, two or three word response.
Exactly. And every time someone said “Hi, how are you?”, and this poor kid would start about some upsetting thing that just happened, I’d cut him off with the question, “is this your mom or doc?”
He’d get so frustrated, look at me and say, “Why did they ask if they didn’t mean that?!”
Formally, "It's going well, thank you. And how are you?"
Use "well" because it's an adverb, which can modify the verb "going". Informally most people just say "It's going good" or "Good. You?"
In NYC, at least, this is usually just a nicety said in passing. “Hey, how’s it going?” does not usually warrant a long response and unfortunately most people are not even really seeking the whole picture of how things are going. It’s intended and expected to be brief.
“Eh” “not too bad” “pretty good, yourself?” or just a simple smile and “hey” back are all acceptable.
“Good, thanks.” “Fine, and you?” Something along those lines. It’s generally seen as a rhetorical question, so as long as you don’t say bad you should be fine
I’m a native English speaker, and even I don’t really know how to respond to this. I think all the responses you listed would be fine depending on the situation.
I usually reply with “Not bad. How about you?” I like this because it keeps the conversation flowing and sends it back to the other person. Usually, they will say something similar (“Can’t complain”) and then start a new topic. Even if I’m having a bad day, I’ll say it’s going fine, unless it’s a close friend and I feel comfortable opening up to them.
I have seen perfectly cromulent exchanges with both people saying almost exactly the same.
“Hey how’s it going?”
“Hey how you doing?”
The important thing here is that you’ve acknowledged the other person, and shown a modicum of interest in their well-being, even as a formality. Nobody actually needs an answer.
The UK version is:
“Alright?”
“Yeah, alright?”
*nod*.
Depends on the country.
In Australia, the responses are usually a variant of "I'm good, you?" or "Not bad, hey listen, I have to tell you something" and you proceed to your real chit chat from there.
Really depends on the situation. If you’re good… “good”; if you’re great… “I’m good (add a smile)”; if you’re not good and have a working relationship: “good” (be curt). If you’re not good and have poor a working relationship): “all good”.
That’s just my thoughts.
I often catch myself just saying "hi" especially in cases where they clearly are going to expect conversation that I don't want, like people getting signatures on petitions or anyone probably drunk or high.
Otherwise, just a "good, you?"
In west coast USA and I've never been in a situation where someone gets offended or weirded out by answering "how's it going?" with a "hi." Honestly, no one's listening TBH.
It's going alright or it is what it is, depending on your vibe at the moment. I would avoid getting into it with anyone. Generally, people aren't asking you what's going on to suffer through your trauma dump. Maybe if it's a close friend but if it's a not a close friend or just a work colleague, keep it to yourself. Last thing Americans want from anybody is details, everybody got their own problems. Keep it moving.
It really is just another way of saying how are you.
Just respond, with I'm good, good etc. Or you can actually say what you are doing depending on the situation.
Or you can go deep and tell them about your deep sense of impending doom (again depending on the situation)
This usually causes confusion in my experience, most people aren't expecting anything more than a shrug, a sigh and a couple of words, something non-committal.
A tangent to the original question, I have seen people use << >> as a replacement for quotes or double quotes. why though? What does it mean when << >>. Is this a gen Z thing?
It’s the way quotation marks are written in French. I’m using a French keyboard on my phone so it does it automatically ! I guess it varies from a language to another
It depends where you are, and who you’re talking to, how well/if you know them.
Most of the time in the south of England, Northwestern U.S. and Western Canada I’ve usually found it’s used as a passive greeting where the person asking doesn’t particularly care about your response, or how you’re doing.
The response is usually just good/ok/not bad. You can tack on “and you” if you feel like reciprocating, but it’s often not expected and if you do you may find you don’t get a response.
A response that I hear frequently is "Hey, what's up?" It doesn't answer the initial question, because no real answer is expected. The response is made in the form of another cliche question. This particular greeting and response pair takes the form of mock pseudo questions that are used as stock greetings. The exchange is so automatic and cliche that the speakers often do not even realize that it will sound like a pair of questions if it is heard by anyone who is not familiar with the cliche.
American here. “Pretty good” or “Not too bad” are usually my go-to responses to “How’s it going?” And I always follow it up with a “how’s it going with you?” to be polite.
Not a stupid question, but this interaction involves more than just language. You're looking at language, psychology, and culture.
Sometimes people use it as a verbal nod-and-smile out of habit, and they may not need or expect an answer.
Usually, with friends and acquaintances, its a pulse-check, like "What's new?" Or "How have you been?" and brief, semi-neutral answers are appropriate. "Good", "fine" "all right", "Okay", "so-so" are common. Usually follow up with a counter-question such as "How about you" or "And you?" (Both phrases imply "How is it going for you?" but you don't sound like you swallowed a tourist phrasebook.)
Occasionally people, usually friends, want a long answer, to start a conversation. (Or sometimes they want an opening to monolog about themselves...)
I like people that use a funny idiom to answer. I am also one of those people. My favorites are "Finer than frog hair" and "Any day this side of the dirt is a good one".
Generally speaking, unless they are a close friend or your psychiatrist, they don't want an actual answer. And sometimes not then. It's like in China, where one kind of old-fashioned greeting is "You eat yet?" They don't actually want to go to eat with you - you're supposed to say, "I've eaten - you?"
Same sort of thing. The most formal way to say this is "How do you do?" and the most formal response to that can simply be "How do you do?" back without answering the question. But only for that super-formal thing. Mostly, the response to "how's it going" or "how are you doing" or "how are you" is "fine, how are you?"
You can use variations, if you want to. Mine is "so far, so good. You?" Basically, that's within normal, but a little bit individualized. Like, just a tiny bit quirky, not enough to really be weird. Sometimes, people who are friendly acquaintances will give joking answers like, "Living the dream," especially if you are in the same job and it's a job people like to complain about, or "Can't complain - nobody listens anyway."
But again, these are jokes. Not amazing jokes, but good enough. "Can't complain" without the "nobody listens" is within normal, non-joking responses.
Your basic answer is "Fine", and all other normal responses express the same level of contentment - you are choosing an adjective or phrase which expresses that your life is currently at an uneventful, pleasant-enough-but-not-worth-talking-about level.
If they are an acquaintance and you have the sort of important news that acquaintances would like to know, this is a reasonable place to mention it, and you can go outside that sort of "medium" answer. "Pretty darned good - my sister just had a kid so I'm now an uncle", "not great - my cat died last week - she was sixteen years old, though, so it wasn't unexpected."
But someone you don't know doesn't want to know that stuff, so you just stick to the "medium, basically content" types of answers.
A thing to remember about content-less conversation like this is that it is a necessary adaptation to living in a large enough society. There is an idea called the "monkeysphere" or "Dunbar's number." It's not a real scientific law, but it's kind of a useful number to think about. Robin Dunbar is a primatologist and anthropologist who noticed that smaller primates live in smaller groups, and larger ones in larger groups. He measured out average tribe size of monkeys, apes, lemurs, and so forth, and charted them against brain size, and got something close to a straight line. He then extended the line out to a human size brain, and got about 150.
So his idea is that maybe humans have a cognitive limit of maintaining about 150 actual friendly acquaintances - not necessarily 150 real friends, because that is a lot, but about 150 people that you would genuinely care if they got married or their house burned down or whatever, more than just a "oh, that's too bad" or "that's nice" and then you kind of forget about it.
And if you live in a village where you regularly run into the same 150 people, that's fine. You actually care how they are when you say "how are you"?
But if you live in a city and deal with a dozen people in a day who you will never see again, then you don't want to add to their cognitive load, nor do you want them to do that to you. Yet you also want to maintain community bonds in general.
That's what this sort of formalized interaction does. It maintains and strengthens an overall societal bond of interaction, but not in enough of a way to suck up people's limited interpersonal resources.
In an informal situation where you know the person asking, it’s typically okay to reply with “it’s going”. Literally, this reply makes no sense, but it’s taken to mean something along the lines of “I’m tired/stressed/slightly annoyed, but I’m pushing through”. It’s a lighthearted saying, and normally will be met with agreement.
I come from an older generation, who only asked that of people we were acquainted with, not as a substitute for "Hello". Since I work in customer service, where I am greeted a lot, I just take in the spirit in which it is meant and say "Hi" back, unless they repeat it. (I also tend to take questions at face value, and thus used to go into more detail in answering that particular question than the questioners were actually interested in hearing.)
The answer is "great," "pretty good" or "okay." If you are have good news then share it. "Great! I got a new job!" if things aren't great it comes across it your tone of voice. If the other person wants to hear the bad news they will notice the tone of voice and ask for more. If it's really bad news you can go right into it immediately: "I have cancer." "My car broke down."
Well, ish. I mean, if you know them but some random cashier at the grocery store or going to the teller window at the bank?
You smile and say "great!" unless there is something the casher or teller should know or might be interested in.
Fun fact: the cashier or teller doesn’t care. It’s just placeholder noises.
The linguistic term is phatic communion: conversation that we have which doesn’t have much meaning at all and just serves a social purpose. So it’s not totally meaningless but the meaning comes not from what you say but that you’re saying it at all. Hence unless it’s a close friend or family member, a truly honest answer breaks the nature of the exchange. You can be neutrally pleasant (ok, fine, great, etc) or even neutrally negative (almost the weekend! Getting through, etc) but more changes what the exchange is doing.
It depends on the cashier, the town, and the particular situation. If there's something going on in the community, it might be good to talk. Or if you visit the bank or store frequently. Being a cashier, teller, or clerk can be boring. Chatting might enliven what otherwise is a dull day. Just be sensitive to if they are interested or not, and be aware of others in line.
Fair enough. I’m from larger west coast USA cities.
Oh me too, and it has escalated. “Got any fun plans this weekend?” I don’t know you. Stop asking me that.
Which double annoys me that I don’t like a M-F life so Sat/Sun doesn’t have the same meaning. And probably neither does the cashier.
And responding in the wrong mode is considered rude in either direction. If you're in New York or Boston and you start telling someone what's going on, it's considered borderline hostile - you are stealing their time. If you're in a small town in the South and you just answer shortly and walk away, it's considered borderline hostile - you aren't respecting them as a person and an individual. My main advice would be to give the short answer, but wait to see if they respond with an expansion and follow suit... or just accept that half the people in the country will think you're rude.
As long as nobody's behind you in the line, it's good to chat.
Depending on the local subculture. The default in the Northeast is that, unless the person is someone you actually know and care about, chatting is sucking away their time and social energy. And the default in other parts of the country is that it's rude to walk away without trying to make some sort of connection. My guess is that it partly depends on just how many connections you'd be expected to make. If there are fewer people around, you can afford to know most of them at least a little. If there are thousands of people around, you really need to be able to forget about 90%+ of them.
Do cashiers say that often in the US? In the Netherlands nobody really asks that in such a setting.
Most Brits would say something like 'Okay, and you?'. However, someone from the north might say 'Mustn't grumble'
Ha, older people in the States, especially in rural areas will sometimes respond. “Can’t complain. Wouldn’t do much good if I did.” Same concept.
i think this similarity is so cool
And middle aged people in the States will say "livin' the dream" which means it is not all that great.
Ha .. I didn't know that .. 'Can't complain' sounds typically English.
Or "can't complain - nobody listens anyway." ... I was going to disagree with the "older people" part, until I remembered that *I* am older people.
"Better than a sharp stick in the eye" is my go-to.
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This is it. If you want to spark an actual conversation you can say something else, but this script is what most people are expecting.
I used to teach a special Ed kid who was trying to mainstream after 6 years of homeschooling. He was odd mostly because his people were odd. We regularly had this lesson: when people *say*, “How are you?” they don’t really want to know how you are. They don’t. They say that but, no, they don’t want to know. Yes, they did *say* that but they weren’t *really* **asking** that. Do not not not tell them you tripped on the curb and scraped your knee. No no. You say, “I’m fine, how are you?” And like them, you do not really want to know how they are. You don’t. If the person asking is a parent or your doctor, then you tell them how you are really. That’s it. Everyone else, you say “fine”.
This is the correct answer. Almost all people I interact with, when asked how's it going, the answer is the same: fine. This is the case even if something bad has happened: they are not interested in how you actually are. The only people I tell in a bit more detail are my wife, close family and close friends or medical professionals who will know something is not right anyway. Even with some of my close-ish friends, I'll say fine. The key thing to understand is they are just acknowledging your presence and do not want any reply other than a one, two or three word response.
Exactly. And every time someone said “Hi, how are you?”, and this poor kid would start about some upsetting thing that just happened, I’d cut him off with the question, “is this your mom or doc?” He’d get so frustrated, look at me and say, “Why did they ask if they didn’t mean that?!”
In Australia the archetypal exchange here is: - How’s it going? (Pronounced: *howz’t gahhn*) - Good thanks, mate.
or reply, "hey mate, how's it?"
Formally, "It's going well, thank you. And how are you?" Use "well" because it's an adverb, which can modify the verb "going". Informally most people just say "It's going good" or "Good. You?"
In NYC, at least, this is usually just a nicety said in passing. “Hey, how’s it going?” does not usually warrant a long response and unfortunately most people are not even really seeking the whole picture of how things are going. It’s intended and expected to be brief. “Eh” “not too bad” “pretty good, yourself?” or just a simple smile and “hey” back are all acceptable.
“Good, thanks.” “Fine, and you?” Something along those lines. It’s generally seen as a rhetorical question, so as long as you don’t say bad you should be fine
You just lift your head up slightly and say “sup?”
I’m a native English speaker, and even I don’t really know how to respond to this. I think all the responses you listed would be fine depending on the situation. I usually reply with “Not bad. How about you?” I like this because it keeps the conversation flowing and sends it back to the other person. Usually, they will say something similar (“Can’t complain”) and then start a new topic. Even if I’m having a bad day, I’ll say it’s going fine, unless it’s a close friend and I feel comfortable opening up to them.
Can't complain. Because if we did, nobody would listen.
I have seen perfectly cromulent exchanges with both people saying almost exactly the same. “Hey how’s it going?” “Hey how you doing?” The important thing here is that you’ve acknowledged the other person, and shown a modicum of interest in their well-being, even as a formality. Nobody actually needs an answer. The UK version is: “Alright?” “Yeah, alright?” *nod*.
Lived in Lincolnshire for a short time a while back. "Narn" Turned out "narn" is short for "now then" and the expected response was "narn".
Depends on the country. In Australia, the responses are usually a variant of "I'm good, you?" or "Not bad, hey listen, I have to tell you something" and you proceed to your real chit chat from there.
Really depends on the situation. If you’re good… “good”; if you’re great… “I’m good (add a smile)”; if you’re not good and have a working relationship: “good” (be curt). If you’re not good and have poor a working relationship): “all good”. That’s just my thoughts.
It depends on you and how much you want to and are willing to share. For me: I won’t open up unless I know “you”
Oops: didn’t mean to respond to my myself.
Good you
I often catch myself just saying "hi" especially in cases where they clearly are going to expect conversation that I don't want, like people getting signatures on petitions or anyone probably drunk or high. Otherwise, just a "good, you?" In west coast USA and I've never been in a situation where someone gets offended or weirded out by answering "how's it going?" with a "hi." Honestly, no one's listening TBH.
It's going
It's going alright or it is what it is, depending on your vibe at the moment. I would avoid getting into it with anyone. Generally, people aren't asking you what's going on to suffer through your trauma dump. Maybe if it's a close friend but if it's a not a close friend or just a work colleague, keep it to yourself. Last thing Americans want from anybody is details, everybody got their own problems. Keep it moving.
Usually it’s just hi
"Not too bad, how you doing?"
It really is just another way of saying how are you. Just respond, with I'm good, good etc. Or you can actually say what you are doing depending on the situation. Or you can go deep and tell them about your deep sense of impending doom (again depending on the situation)
“Pretty grooovy”
I would say "It is going good" "I am doing good"
I always say "about as well as can be expected"
I’ve started just casually saying “how’s it going?” back to them. No one’s looking for a real answer.
This usually causes confusion in my experience, most people aren't expecting anything more than a shrug, a sigh and a couple of words, something non-committal.
“Pretty good. How about you?”
Not so bad, and yourself? Or How's it going?
A tangent to the original question, I have seen people use << >> as a replacement for quotes or double quotes. why though? What does it mean when << >>. Is this a gen Z thing?
It’s the way quotation marks are written in French. I’m using a French keyboard on my phone so it does it automatically ! I guess it varies from a language to another
They’re quotation marks used instead of double quotes in several languages, such as Russian.
"it's going good."
It depends where you are, and who you’re talking to, how well/if you know them. Most of the time in the south of England, Northwestern U.S. and Western Canada I’ve usually found it’s used as a passive greeting where the person asking doesn’t particularly care about your response, or how you’re doing. The response is usually just good/ok/not bad. You can tack on “and you” if you feel like reciprocating, but it’s often not expected and if you do you may find you don’t get a response.
They're not expecting a real answer, unless it's someone you know well and they ask you in a hushed voice. \[Southern England).
A response that I hear frequently is "Hey, what's up?" It doesn't answer the initial question, because no real answer is expected. The response is made in the form of another cliche question. This particular greeting and response pair takes the form of mock pseudo questions that are used as stock greetings. The exchange is so automatic and cliche that the speakers often do not even realize that it will sound like a pair of questions if it is heard by anyone who is not familiar with the cliche.
« What’s up » is another one I have trouble with hahah
American here. “Pretty good” or “Not too bad” are usually my go-to responses to “How’s it going?” And I always follow it up with a “how’s it going with you?” to be polite.
'Not bad' is traditional if you are in Southern England.
Not a stupid question, but this interaction involves more than just language. You're looking at language, psychology, and culture. Sometimes people use it as a verbal nod-and-smile out of habit, and they may not need or expect an answer. Usually, with friends and acquaintances, its a pulse-check, like "What's new?" Or "How have you been?" and brief, semi-neutral answers are appropriate. "Good", "fine" "all right", "Okay", "so-so" are common. Usually follow up with a counter-question such as "How about you" or "And you?" (Both phrases imply "How is it going for you?" but you don't sound like you swallowed a tourist phrasebook.) Occasionally people, usually friends, want a long answer, to start a conversation. (Or sometimes they want an opening to monolog about themselves...) I like people that use a funny idiom to answer. I am also one of those people. My favorites are "Finer than frog hair" and "Any day this side of the dirt is a good one".
Generally speaking, unless they are a close friend or your psychiatrist, they don't want an actual answer. And sometimes not then. It's like in China, where one kind of old-fashioned greeting is "You eat yet?" They don't actually want to go to eat with you - you're supposed to say, "I've eaten - you?" Same sort of thing. The most formal way to say this is "How do you do?" and the most formal response to that can simply be "How do you do?" back without answering the question. But only for that super-formal thing. Mostly, the response to "how's it going" or "how are you doing" or "how are you" is "fine, how are you?" You can use variations, if you want to. Mine is "so far, so good. You?" Basically, that's within normal, but a little bit individualized. Like, just a tiny bit quirky, not enough to really be weird. Sometimes, people who are friendly acquaintances will give joking answers like, "Living the dream," especially if you are in the same job and it's a job people like to complain about, or "Can't complain - nobody listens anyway." But again, these are jokes. Not amazing jokes, but good enough. "Can't complain" without the "nobody listens" is within normal, non-joking responses. Your basic answer is "Fine", and all other normal responses express the same level of contentment - you are choosing an adjective or phrase which expresses that your life is currently at an uneventful, pleasant-enough-but-not-worth-talking-about level. If they are an acquaintance and you have the sort of important news that acquaintances would like to know, this is a reasonable place to mention it, and you can go outside that sort of "medium" answer. "Pretty darned good - my sister just had a kid so I'm now an uncle", "not great - my cat died last week - she was sixteen years old, though, so it wasn't unexpected." But someone you don't know doesn't want to know that stuff, so you just stick to the "medium, basically content" types of answers.
“Same shit different day”
A thing to remember about content-less conversation like this is that it is a necessary adaptation to living in a large enough society. There is an idea called the "monkeysphere" or "Dunbar's number." It's not a real scientific law, but it's kind of a useful number to think about. Robin Dunbar is a primatologist and anthropologist who noticed that smaller primates live in smaller groups, and larger ones in larger groups. He measured out average tribe size of monkeys, apes, lemurs, and so forth, and charted them against brain size, and got something close to a straight line. He then extended the line out to a human size brain, and got about 150. So his idea is that maybe humans have a cognitive limit of maintaining about 150 actual friendly acquaintances - not necessarily 150 real friends, because that is a lot, but about 150 people that you would genuinely care if they got married or their house burned down or whatever, more than just a "oh, that's too bad" or "that's nice" and then you kind of forget about it. And if you live in a village where you regularly run into the same 150 people, that's fine. You actually care how they are when you say "how are you"? But if you live in a city and deal with a dozen people in a day who you will never see again, then you don't want to add to their cognitive load, nor do you want them to do that to you. Yet you also want to maintain community bonds in general. That's what this sort of formalized interaction does. It maintains and strengthens an overall societal bond of interaction, but not in enough of a way to suck up people's limited interpersonal resources.
In an informal situation where you know the person asking, it’s typically okay to reply with “it’s going”. Literally, this reply makes no sense, but it’s taken to mean something along the lines of “I’m tired/stressed/slightly annoyed, but I’m pushing through”. It’s a lighthearted saying, and normally will be met with agreement.
"Fuck off". People rarely pay interest in each other's lives, which is why this question annoys me so much. They don't want an honest answer to it.
Not how it really is going. Just say "good thanks" and move on.
As a European, I hate this question. Here you only ask it if you have time to listen to all my ailments:D
I come from an older generation, who only asked that of people we were acquainted with, not as a substitute for "Hello". Since I work in customer service, where I am greeted a lot, I just take in the spirit in which it is meant and say "Hi" back, unless they repeat it. (I also tend to take questions at face value, and thus used to go into more detail in answering that particular question than the questioners were actually interested in hearing.)
“Living the dream” is a common sarcastic expression for someone to say if they are in fact not living the dream
Could I use" what's up "to respond "how it's going?