The Universal Greeting

I don’t know if maybe it is a just a California greeting but, “Hey, what’s up?” is how, in my fabulous social circle, we greet each other. Now let me give you a heads up if you’re reading this and think the proper reply to this greeting would not be another greeting but instead, an actual reply of what is really up in your life, you are the person that needs to continue reading this.
You see, in my hometown, in the southern California city of Newport Beach, “Hey, what’s up?” or, “hey, how are you?” and “Hi” or “Hello”, are all interchangeable and serve as what some may call “formal” greetings. In Newport for example, if I were to ask, “Hey, what’s up” it would be likely that the response would be something along the lines of “Nothing really. That shirt you are wearing is fabulous. Where did you get it?” And then of course the conversation would make its way back to me. How anyone could see Hello, Good Morning or even Hey what’s up as anything but proper and formal greetings is something totally bizarre… at least in Newport.

So, of course now I must tell you one of the more horrific stories of my college encounters. Going off to college was something that I believed would be a rewarding and exciting experience, but trust me, meeting people from places like Connecticut and Chicago is terrifying. It’s like they’re from other planets; like really, they could not understand a word that passed my lips! It was just loathsome when I went to greet people and instead of the standard hello and of course the sincere compliment about my new shoes and/or skirt that I usually received in Newport, it was like freaking “Cave Man.” I quote, wait, no scratch that, I won’t force the same painfully pathetic life story on you. I was appalled to say the least.

Get this, during the second week of school, I saw this girl who, yes, I knew, and yes, was nice, and yes, at the time I considered allowing her to call me her friend, but unfortunately what she said to me that fateful morning has forever changed my opinion about her.

We were in the hall and of course, being the social, nice person that I am, I walked up to her and say the normal, universal greeting, “Hey, what’s up?” and to my disgust she not only neglected to say hi back, she started talking about herself! Crazy, right? So, she starts off by telling me she is extremely exhausted because she had been up until two o’clock in the morning talking to her boyfriend on the phone, and then she starts crying and tells me that he ended up breaking up with her and blah, blah, blah right. I honestly cannot even remember anything after that because I was just so hurt. I just kept thinking, how dare she overlook my new stilettos, and finally, when her torrential downpour of tears had waned down to a slight trickle I decided I should inform her of the ghastly, disgusting, and downright Neanderthal mistake she had made by quite literally telling me what in fact was up. So I took her aside and kindly educated her about what I really intended when I addressed her.

Of course, like all the others, when I tried to help her, she was offended, I still have no idea why, and thus, she made the situation that much more awkward. I mean, it’s hard for me to tell people they have messed up and it’s even harder for me to feel like the bad guy, but how else would she learn? It was traumatizing for the poor girl, but I did my best to console her and make it plain that she should not commit the same error a second time. I think she understood because ever since that encounter she has said absolutely nothing about her personal life.

It was just a horrible experience to have to continuously educate people on the proper meaning of my humble salutation, that I almost stopped saying it all together. Luckily, I’m not someone to conform to the needs of others so, despite my new already high stress level s entering college and steadily being put on my peer’s hit lists, I decided to tell the world what I mean in one simple essay. Now you see my use of language which, though obviously not known to the visitors of California, is not that confusing. But, seeing that so many people just do not seem to comprehend our salutations I knew it would be prudent to blog about it and inform all of the less educated people about what, “Hey, what’s up?” really means. If you haven’t paid attention, please refer to the above, where I’ve discussed the obvious DO’S and DON’TS concerning “Hey, what’s up”

Finally, I do not have any idea why, but some people are just too literal. When does a word actually genuinely mean what it is supposed to mean these days. The world of literal language is coming to an end my friends and I think that it is in everyone’s best interest to accept this knowledge and learn how to actually communicate in this day and age. Of course, the elderly are simply much too conditioned in the “old language” as I like to call it, to be taught how utterly unacceptable their archaic English has become.

There’s a sale on at Bloomies so I’ll just say this one last time, our generation and the generations to come all must know and accept the simple idea that language is not what it used to be, and learn “What’s up.”