How do you do?

Here is something many non-English speakers learned at school:

When you meet a person from the UK, that person will say, “How do you do?” and instead of answering the question, you are expected to answer “How do you do?”. 

As a Brit, I can tell you: this is, like, 100 years out of date. Don’t do it.

However, I recently learned that modern Australian English does something very similar. They say “How ya goin’?” And the answer is, you guessed it, “How ya goin’?”

And when I posted this on social media, an American let me know that the answer to “What’s up?” is “What’s up?” and a Brit said the answer to “You alright?” is “You alright?”

The Anglo-Saxon tradition of completely ignoring questions lives on!

No link with houdoe

I once read that to the “how do you do?”- sayers of yore, “how do you do?” wasn’t a question, but a synonym of “nice to meet you” or “nice to see you again”. So, to them, there was no question that was not being answered. I guess it’s the same for Australians. Readers in Australia: let me know!

“How do you do?” can still be seen in the American greeting “Howdie”. It can NOT be seen in the Noord-Brabant parting phrase “houdoe”, however plausible the story that it was taken over from the Second World War liberators. It simply comes from Houdt oe eigen goed, which means “Keep yourself well”.

So, what should you say?

In general, when greeting someone in Britain, you are expected to say “How are you?”. And you are expected to answer “Good, how are you?” or “Fine, how are you?”

On no account are you expected to actually give the other person details on how you are, or tell them that you aren’t doing so well!

(An exception would be something like your mother’s funeral, in which case you are permitted, just, to say something like “You know, hanging in there. How are you?”) 

Social media responses

Here are some interesting responses I got when I posted this on social media:

An Australian said about the phrase “How ya going?”

We are super-efficient, reducing a 5-syllable expression to 2*: “Air Gaan”.

Heddwen Newton teaches English and Dutch, and is also a translator and a linguist. Her newsletter
English and the Dutch is about all the funny and interesting ways Dutch and English overlap.