标题: ‘How Are You?’ [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 1-20-2014 16:12 标题: ‘How Are You?’ Alina Simone, The ‘How Are You?’ Culture Clash. Americans are 'fine.' Ask a Russian, and you will get much more: the truth. New York Times, Jan 20, , 2014 (op-ed) www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/opini ... u-culture-clash.htm
Quote:
"The question in question is, 'How are you?' The answer Americans give, of course is, 'Fine.' * * * Ask a Russian, 'How are you?' and you will hear, for better or worse, the truth.
"The thing most Russians don’t realize is that, in English, “How are you?' isn’t a question at all, but a form of 'hi,' like the Russian 'privyet!' The Americans weren’t responsible for its transformation; that honor goes to the British. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the phrase’s precursor, 'How do you do?' as a common phrase 'often used as a mere greeting or salutation.' The anodyne exchange dates at least as far back as 1604, to Shakespeare’s Othello
My comment:
(a) Helen (given name)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_(given_name)
(section 1 Name variants: Galina (Russian))
(b) Saying Hello and Goodbye in Russian. For Dummies, undated www.dummies.com/how-to/content/s ... bye-in-russian.html
("The informal way of saying 'hello' in Russian is privyet! (pree-vyet) It's similar to the English 'hi,' and you should be on pretty familiar terms with a person before you use this greeting")
(c) anodyne (adj; Latin anodynos, from Greek anōdynos, from a- + odynē pain) www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anodyne
(d) So, "how do you do?" is British? No wonder I have not heard of it since coming to US three decades ago.
(e) When I arrived in US, I was unacustomed to the greeting "How are you?" Over the years, I came to the conclusion that the English we were taught in Taiwan--Talking about my years there; do not know the current situation--was British, from pronunciation symbols (KK) to pronunciation itself. (But spelling (in Taiwan) was American.) We were taught that "How do you do" is for strangers, but "How are you?" are who one knows better. But Americans say "How are you?" to all. I quickly learned.
(i) Kenyon and Knott
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenyon_and_Knott
(first published by the G & C Merriam Company in 1944, and written by John Samuel Kenyon and Thomas A Knott [both American])
Quote: "One principal application of Kenyon and Knott's system is to teach American English pronunciation to non-native speakers of English. It is commonly used for this purpose in Taiwan, where it is commonly known as 'KK.' Many of the pronunciations in Kenyon and Knott seem antiquated today.
(ii) I searched the Web, and now am unsure if KK simulates American pronunciation in 1940s, or British pronunciation. But in Taiwan, "forehead" is pronounced British way (forid), so is squirrel ("i" rather than "er" for the first sylable, which caused bewilderment in the listener when I first pronounced it in US.
(f) Two years before I came to US, a college graduate had come, to Indiana University. She wrote home that Americans were very warm (unlike Taiwanese) and greeted her all the time. (Her mother pointed that sentence to me, when I visted their apartment. I did not get to read the rest of the letter.)
Two months into my time in US, I discovered telling the truth would be no-no in US, when greeted. A dorm mate bumped into me at dorm caffeteria and asked casully, "How is your day?" I replied , "Not good" and went on for one to two minutes. I notied her consternation as time went on. Never made the faux pas again.