It's getting old, how I keep taking a few months off from blogging only to come crawling back to you begging for your forgiveness, comments, and blog ideas. And so instead of groveling and pleading for those three things (but mainly the last two, if you wanted to know), I'm just going to forge ahead.
And forging ahead, at the moment, is looking pretty exciting. I've accumulated some potential blog topics, and I'm ready to get back to more frequent Tangential adventures. And I should have plenty to write about, as I'm currently planning my wedding (which is, of course, a nicer-sounding way of saying that my fiancee is planning my wedding). I'll keep you posted soon on whether we plan to commit any of the cardinal sins of lame weddings: parts one two three.
But after such a long break, I think I need to ease back into the blogosphere. So I hope you'll join me as I inspect one of the least helpful phrases ever spoken by human beings since the dawn of verbal communication.
Answer my question!!!
With information that wasn't already implied by the existence of my question, punk
We often speak in pleasantries. "Small talk". I've gone on record that I don't really like this practice to begin with. But let's lay that argument aside. Small talk is a part of life. And occasionally, it's an annoying and baffling part of that life.
One of the most common questions when getting into small talk gear is, "How's it going?" While in this pure form the question is undeniably vapid (sorry, I forgot I was getting off that soapbox), the phrasing is often used for very real moments of inquiry:
How's the new job going?
How's it going living with your in-laws?
How's the crusade against "How's it going?" going?
These are real questions meant to initiate segments of conversation. But one common phrase, somehow only becoming more popular by the minute, stops these blossoming conversations dead in their tracks. In case you haven't Sherlocked it yet, I'm talking about
"Oh, it's going..."
Yeah, I know it's going. That's why I asked how it's going. Like, when you know there's something, but you want to know more about that thing, so you ask a question about it... that's not some secret way of asking if the thing exists.
How was the movie last night?
Oh, it was a movie...
What do you think of DiCarlo's pizza?
Oh, DiCarlo's has pizza...
What time is the baseball game?
Oh, the baseball game occurs at a time...
This is a total non-answer. Yeah yeah, I'll make a few concessions:
- Usually there's a widening of the eyes and a sad nod of the head accompanying this verbal waste of time. This, I think, is meant to imply that the thing in question is progressing in an intense or cumbersome way. But I'm not a mind-reader, people.
- Sometimes people do follow it up with real information. "Oh, it's going... my mother-in-law keeps making pointless small talk with me, so I try to spend a lot of time at the new job or eating DiCarlo's pizza during baseball games." But sometimes people don't even do this; they seriously just say that it's going. And even when they do elaborate, it makes the opening phrase pointless. It becomes just an annoying filler akin to "It is what it is" or "Can I ask you a question?"
"Tell me how you really feel."
Not sure if I stressed this enough: comments and blog ideas
Have you committed the grave error of saying "Oh, it's going..."?
Which everyday phrases bother you?
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| From an ESL website: "People who ask this phrase are usually trying to start a conversation." |
What I also find weird with the phrase "how's it going?" is that people will treat it as if there's no question mark and/or if it's synonymous with "hello." For example: I see someone I know and say "how's it going?" and they respond with simply "how's it going?". At this point, my mind is blown by them answering my question with a question, and I walk away to go think about the meaning of it all or something. Or, if they are the initiaters of the "how's it going?", I will usually say something simple like "it's going well. How are you doing?", to which they don't respond! Hey, I answered your question, why did you react to my question with awkward silence? Where's the give-and-take here, guy?
ReplyDeleteEven more confusing to me is the now popular, "What's good?" greeting. (Not to mention knowing how to use punctuation when quoting something--- inside or outside the quotes?)
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase the eminent philosopher, Mr. Douglas Adams, 'In the beginning small talk was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.'
ReplyDeleteUnabashedly, my default answer is to immediately respond with their question in the sarcastic style - "oh, it's going..." - until they learn to skip ahead and ask me a question to which they want a useful answer, or until they give up and go away. I will, however, always answer a substantive question.
On a related note, I detest the addition of "or not" to a comment, the subject of which has only two possible states. EX: Is the door unlocked or not? The options are 'locked' or 'unlocked', without a third possibility. And for the record, having more than one lock but only locking one still makes it 'locked', though how well it is locked may depend entirely on whatever it is you're trying to keep from opening it.
A sub-peeve occurs when both of the two-outcomes are described, often deployed with complete ignorance of the word 'whether' and its function. EX: It doesn't matter whether the door is locked or unlocked, since we live in Chernobyl and locks don't stop anything that's trying to get in anyway. Again, it is either 'locked' or 'unlocked' regardless of how many, how relevant, or how functional the locks.
Jon, I'm sorry for asking permission to ask a question. I'm not sure if it's visible to everyone, but I saw my name attached to that jab. I'll work on that if you promise not to secretly hate me for asking a million questions nor begrudgingly answer a question while thinking, "Woah, lady. Who gave you the right to ask me such questions?"
ReplyDeleteKirstin,
DeleteI wasn't thinking of you at all when I wrote that. In retrospect, yes you do that haha, but when I wrote that I was definitely thinking of that awesome 'awkward MPD story' I have. And as a general rule I won't refer to you as Lady in my head.
That's a negative on peeves one, two, and three.
ReplyDelete