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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2874 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 27, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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A coworker from our London office visited last week and I flubbed the greeting. He did the British "You all right?" and I completely panicked. I said yeah thanks and quickly walked past to my desk. I don't know why it's such a disorienting way to say hello, or why it's so popular over there.

From the other side "hey" doesn't make much sense as a greeting as it's central meaning here would be to call attention to someone or something eg. "Hey, watch out for that hole!", "Hey, over here!" or "Hey! You pulled a trick on me!".

It's used as "hello" in many Germanic languages:

Cognate with Dutch hé, hei (“hi, hey”), German hei (“hey, wow”), Danish and Swedish hej (“hello, hey”), Faroese hey (“hey, hello”), Old Norse, Icelandic and Norwegian hei (“hey”), Polish hej (“hey, hello”), Romanian hei, Russian эй (ej, “hey”);

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