What's Up?

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"What's up?"

"How's it goin'?"

"What's goin' on?"


HOW DO I RESPOND TO THESE QUESTIONS?!?!? Or are they even questions? Here is where I'm confused. Is 'what's up' a question or a greeting? A guy I work with, when he comes in always says "what's up" to me. How do I respond? Do I answer, and tell him what is in fact 'up' or do I come back at him with another greeting? Anybody else find the 'what's up' situation awkward, or am I just thinking too far into it?

No they're not 'real' questions, just part of a ritual, basically. I usually respond with "hey," or say back whatever they said. Also, "good" "great" "fine" tend to work. Not a perfect system, for all situations, but has generally worked ok for me.

Not much.

So what are you up to these days?

My usual replies:

What's up? Not much

How's it goin'? Not bad

What's goin' on? Nothing

For strangers use something like the above.

For acquaintances either use the above or make a one sentence comment about a single issue and how you feel about it but avoid anything overly personal unless you know its safe, for example:

And don't' feel constrained by the exact literal question:

is equally valid. With acquaintances chances are you're in the same something: same school / university / office: while you don't have to respond with anything related to your shared situation, its a safe topic.
After you've responded either leave the air open for a very brief expression of congratulations or sympathy* and then ask the same question of them or just go straight to asking the question. If you don't have anything to say fall back to the answers people mentioned above.


With friends you need not feel constrained by the rules of the ritual, I for example have occasionally responded to this question on instant messengers by pretending I'm out and its my computer talking. Follow the rules for acquaintances unless you have something better to say.


* If you have a serious problem that you think deserves more than a brief expression of sympathy you probobly shouldn't be bringing it up to acquaintances, that's what friends are for. The exception is if you think the acquaintance is qualified to help in a way that friends can't, if that's the case then you should deliberately break the ritual's format, for example:

what's up? It's a direction, but that's not important right now...
Howyadon'? howyoudoin?
How are you? not bad with a little Bearnaise sauce..
(or can't complain)
What's goin' on? - Marvin Gaye, 1969 (probably got that wrong...

I respond to all such greetings with the word "alright."

It is a brilliant word, being both an answer to many questions, and itself a question at the same time ("alright" = "Are you alright?")

What's up?" Nothing

"How's it goin'?" Fine

"What's goin' on?" Not Much

1971.

"I'm doing ok, (mention highlights of the day), what about you?"

well i put nothing much, and put whatever im doing at the moment so the conversation goes longer i hate when even NT put nothing much just chilling like how am i suppossed to respond to that???
and for how are you? i put im good. and ask back like how are you? ya know???????
well im really bad at that in real life i just say nothing much??????

Oh, I HATE 'What's up?'

I know the appropriate answers are supposed to be things like "not much" and "nothing much," but what kind of answer is that? What's the point of greeting someone at all if they are supposed to say something that sounds negative.

What if something interesting is happening to you at the moment, and you want to say, "I just got a phone call from my mom, and found out my sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy!" Well, I suppose you could say that when the person says, "What's up?", but a lot of times people ask that as they are passing you, and they don't stick around for an answer.

Oh, here's one I can't stand. When you are walking down the street, and someone passes you. Just at the moment they pass you, they say, "Hey, how ya doin'?" And you don't answer, or maybe you grunt a syllable, because the person has already passed you, so there's no point in blabbering on to nobody, And then they turn around and come back, and ask you why you didn't answer them. When I was younger, and in the Air Force, there were three times when someone did that, and they accused me of ignoring them because they were black! WTF? It's like, "no, you had already passed me, and weren't sticking around for the answer to 'what's up?'" I mean really! You can't win with some people. What was I supposed to do, double back and go trotting after them, and say, "Nothing much!"

"What's up?" -- The opposite of down

"How's it goin'?" -- Hows what going?

"What's goin' on?" -- Non of your buisness


this is what i used to say
but it would be more correct to answer them
short and without too much substance. Most
of the times its just an ice-breaker, a opening
line before the real talk starts. Alot of people
need icebreakers for some reason, they find it
hard to go straight for the point So instead
of saying what they want to say, they start with
a "how are you doing" and then they get closer
to the point. People....funny little critters, they
start conversations with trailing off the subject
they want to talk about on purpose and yet they
call me weird

This would be better:
answer short and throw a question back at them.

"What's up?" -- Not much, how about you?

"How's it goin'?" -- Good, i`m not complaining, how about you?

"What's goin' on?" -- Not much, whats going on with you?

I have to say that to answer like this goes against every
fiber in my body - but these are societys unwritten rules
and i try my best to bend according to them- the answers
suck according to me, but they seem to be accepted.

A good example is the "how are you doing" question. Very
rarely people want to know how you are doing when asking
this, one should say "fine" no matter what and move on.
But if im not doing fine and say that i am, then i`m lying
and thats not easy. And people dont like it when you tell
them your problems, they have their own problems to
worry about. So i think the Q "how are you doing?" isnt
a Q at all, its a signal that you shoud say "fine, how about
you?". In fact, i think alot of these Q`s aren`t really Q`s
but signals.

Not much, bru. You?

It only requires a simple answer, not a long drawn on response. I usually just say good or great, or not much.

I always get confused by 'what's news?' Which is basically just one guys way of saying 'what's up.'

*points upwards*

Or point downwards, though that is probably less socially acceptable.

Oh nothing.