I once had a voice teacher who insisted that the common exchange of “How are you?” and “Fine, thanks” was an insult to human creativity and sincerity.

Perhaps a little arrogant of her to presume that you should want to give her more than a “Fine, thanks.” Also to presume that others want to hear more than “Fine, thanks,” is a bit of a limb-traveller as well. I’ve been walking past someone, given them the head-nod, said “What’s up?” and been stopped to be told what is, in fact, up. I was frustrated that a time- and culturally-honoured low-overhead acknowledgment of human contact got transformed into something time-investing by simple means of some sort of desire for semantic integrity.

Perhaps this person heard someone say that we should mean it when we ask such scripted questions.

The problem of course is the meaning of it. 99+% of everyone you run into will know that what is really meant by “What’s up?” in such a particular context is little more than the culturally accepted meaning of the phrase. A hand on the shoulder stopping another’s forward momentum or a furrowed brow showing concern will change the meaning of course, but generally, this is a means society has crafted to acknowledge each other as other social persons without the need for undue investment.

In conclusion your voice teacher was a bad person and a breaker of the societal covenant in which we all partake.

In other news: The Passing of the Peace in your church would be way cooler if instead of a hand shake (which is just kind of weird anyway), you could toss up a peace sign with a pleasant grin.