My foreman would always say "Love my job" in a happy tone after anything bad happened on a job site. The happier the tone, the worse it was
Brits ofen say "You alright?" As a substitute for "Hi."
Pretty jarring when you're not used to it. Id think "God, I must look like shit if they're genuinely checking on my welfare!"
Yeah Tom Scott did one of his linguistics videos about that, he had a word for it but some questions aren't really questions they're basically just rituals, though rephrased a different way makes them genuine questions, and when you have major dialects of the "same" language like British and American English, we use different ones. "Are you alright?" is basically a noise of greeting in Britain and an expression of genuine concern in America, while "How are you?" is the reverse.
Chinese version 你吃了吗 or variations on that, although it's not used so much anymore. Literally means "have you eaten", except it doesn't really require an answer. I imagine it came up in that video, but it's a good one.
Literally means “have you eaten”, except it doesn’t really require an answer.
Grandmothers in every culture
When I moved to London, I remember the old lady at the laundromat addressing me as "love"
I was like: "Damn, over here my charm even works with old ladies"
As it turns out, calling somebody "love" it's just a way of addressing people in some English regions.
Won't stop us from having a conversation or even just bitching about something that is randomly bothering us.
I always respond thoughtfully to people I don’t like. Then I ask how they are and watch them squirm.
It me!
Which is also probably why I give this answer. Because it irks me to some degree that we just throwaway important questions like another human’s well-being.
If someone responds without being tripped up, I sorta know they’re my kind of person.
oh same haha, if someone asks me a question they're getting the answer, i don't care that they expected a "i'm fine"
I just realized that I contradicted myself. I said that I use this with folks I don’t like, and then that when I use it, if someone responds well, that I know they’re my kinda people.
I don’t exclusively use it with folks I don’t like! I also throw it out playfully. It’s validating when folks respond in-kind.
It's really like that everywhere, in my experience.
It's at most small talk, not a license to dive into one's life story.
My coworker once when I asked him a hard question: "Don't make me lie to you."
I still think of that a lot and try to work it in when someone asks me an impossible question.
when someone asks me an impossible question.
I think that response actually works for the loaded question:
“Have you stopped beating your wife?“
Since it is super easy, barely an inconvenience, I am going to share this link from where my statement came from:-)
(I wish Lemmy would show preview pics of YouTube videos to let people have a glimpse of what they are in for, but hopefully my hints were enough here:-)
"I'm doin." -I am not doing well and I don't want to talk about it. But I'm also too exhausted and shattered to keep lying about my mental state for the sake of social niceties, so I'm hoping my vague, neutral statement will either convey what I'm feeling, or you'll fill in the blank with whatever you want to hear. Just as long as you stop asking how I'm doing.
"Too blessed to be depressed" - they're a Christian fundamentalist who is depressed but trying to convince themselves otherwise. You should run.
It's been like three years of hearing that and they're still working the same job lol...
I prefer "living a dream".
Am I living someone else's dream? Is it a nightmare? Am I disassociating? -- the answer is "yes".
Defcon 5
I never know if they're meaning that it's not that bad, or if they actually mean defcon 1.
Because with defcon, the lower the number, the worse the situation.
This isnt small talk, this is a survival mechanism to figure if the person will enact violence on you or not. Optimally you want the response to be empty words, grunting, or being told to fuck off.
Optimally you want the response to be empty words, grunting, or being told to fuck off.
US/DE/both, did you mean?
I was referring to US culture. The most exposure to Deutsche culture is through part of my family culture and that ancestor left back when the HRE was still in living memory and not even old living memory.
A friend of mine, married to a European, said that I should have been born in Europe, not the US, due to my hatred of small talk.
It really depends on the country and people's personality.
In my experience in Southern Europe people tend to love share stuff about themselves (and will easilly go into their life story) whilst in Northern Europe getting anything about them without having a long acquaintance with them is very hard if not impossible.
Apparently the Finnish are very averse to small talk (pretty much the opposite of Southern Europe).
Then there are also other variances - in Britain they'll tend to portray themselves as better than they really are feeling, in Portugal they'll tend to complain about life and things and in The Netherlands, if you do get them to open up, they'll be very matter of fact.
After language, it's maybe the hardest kind of thing to get used to when going to live in another country.
Our national holiday consists of drinking and playing with explosives at nighttime. You do the math.
It's generally a very cheerful level of suicidality though! Would be awful to bring the mood down by making a suicide all somber or some shit.
Yah we kill ourselves, Or overly think about it, with extreme excitement and joy over here.
Also one of our best known sub-cultures is one in which the concept of health and safety are slurs when used outside of work. I should know I am a relatively cautious Redneck, that just means I actually keep the medkit nearby for if shit goes worng.
"Good enough" is "My head is barely above water and I'm wondering if it's worth the effort"
Good enough= My day is shit, My week is shit, My life has been shit, but it's not as shit as other people so I don't have the right.
It's the suffix that hits hardest:
... it's not as shit as other people so I don't have the right.
at least that's what my friend that I'm asking for definitely said
Don't forget "too blessed to be depressed"= I think God will be angry with me if I admit life (read: murica) isn't perfect
Boss makes a dollar,
I make a dime,
That was a poem,
For a simpler time.
Now the boss makes a hundred,
And the workers a cent,
While he has employees,
Who can't pay their rent.
Why wait till the boss makes a million,
And the workers make jack?
It's high time we riot,
And take our world back.
The traffic light simply would not turn green
So the people stopped to wait
As the traffic rolled and the wind blew cold
And the hour grew dark and late
Zoom-varoom, trucks, trailers,
Bikes and limousines,
Clatterin’ by — me oh my!
Won’t that light turn green?
But the days turned weeks, and the weeks turned months
And there on the corner they stood,
Twiddlin’ their thumbs till the changin’ comes
The way good people should.
And if you walk by that corner now,
You may think it’s rather strange
To see them there as they hopefully gaze
With the very same smile on their very same face
As they patiently stand in the very same place
And wait for the light to change.
The world’s full of ladies’ men. Not too many guys who can do that thing with words.
Dramamine is the first thing I thought of.
Guillotines and Dramamine would make a decent band name.
DefCon Stages:
5 - "I'm here, ain't I?"
4 - "ain't dead yet."
3 - "it is what it is"
2 - "I'm not gonna lie to you"
1 - "...don't worry about it"
In the opposite direction, when I moved to England it took me a while to get used to compliment "inflation" over there.
For example when somebody's opinion on something is:
I once asked one of the natives how did they transmit the message that they trully believes something was a 10/10 and was explained that's done by going into details on how something is so great.
I'm German and for me, "can't complain" means I have nothing to complain, I'm fine, nothing special
I find Germans have an easier time replying to things very frankly and without garnishment or humor. I can ask a German, "How are you?", and he may reply with "I'm fine" and it can be taken at face value.
Americans tend to be more, I don't know, conflict avoidant in their replies? There's more expectation of subtext, of irony, and it's not as typical to take "I'm fine" at face value.
"Can't complain" is another good one. It's often heard as, "I can't complain [because nobody would listen anyway]". Tone is important, as is environmental context. Blue collar workers at the site say this, yeah their day is going to shit. Your buddy says it over drinks, maybe he's having a neutral, normal time of life, or maybe his life is going to shit and he's giving the ironic answer to avoid diving into his real issues, while still communicating that things are not perfect.
Last week I was asked how my day was. It had been a perfectly normal, decent day, good time at work, beautiful weather, and my reply was "Life's a peach". I got back, "That bad, huh?" Yeah, the American habit of taking genuine expression and searching for a darkness under it can be tiring sometimes.
What annoys me with this culture is when they expect foreigners to use the same exhuberant language and they think something is wrong with you if you don't.