Good morning to you
Aug. 13th, 2018 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigidWhy is "Good Morning" so friendly while "Good Afternoon" so formal? I asked a friend that and she had thoughts.
"i think it's because we say "good morning" as like a "hello this is the first i've seen you today!" it's like welcome to the new day! but we don't say good afternoon and good evening because we're just over greeting people in that way by then.
"you get a good morning first thing and a good night at the end. everything else is uncommon so it seems formal because you only see it in old movies.
"we don't greet people as much in american culture as say... the french. we think the french are rude but actually they think we're extremely rude because we don't go around saying "bonjour" to literally every fucking person we see, including each individual in an elevator.
"we prefer partings like "thank you" and "have a nice day" after having established an interaction. otherwise we find it bothersome and distracting when people are constantly greeting each other. we think it means they want something."
She's right about most things so I assume she's right about this too.
Meanwhile, I'm going to stick to using "Hey! How's it going?" after 12:00 noon.
"i think it's because we say "good morning" as like a "hello this is the first i've seen you today!" it's like welcome to the new day! but we don't say good afternoon and good evening because we're just over greeting people in that way by then.
"you get a good morning first thing and a good night at the end. everything else is uncommon so it seems formal because you only see it in old movies.
"we don't greet people as much in american culture as say... the french. we think the french are rude but actually they think we're extremely rude because we don't go around saying "bonjour" to literally every fucking person we see, including each individual in an elevator.
"we prefer partings like "thank you" and "have a nice day" after having established an interaction. otherwise we find it bothersome and distracting when people are constantly greeting each other. we think it means they want something."
She's right about most things so I assume she's right about this too.
Meanwhile, I'm going to stick to using "Hey! How's it going?" after 12:00 noon.
