Conversation openers - the trite, the trivial, the tedious

“How are you today?” subtly transposed into Australiana -
“how’s you’s today?”

An open ended question addressed to and foisted upon the unsuspecting and the ill prepared.

It’s not designed, to elicit an instant response. Heaven forbid you’re probably not even expected to respond at all to this assumed territorially right of passage.

Instead, it is couched as an introductory platitude,more by way of a one sided conversational exchange, one that doesn’t expect a comprehensive response.

You’ll recognise it for what it is – the territory of the vaporous, "my sales figures are down this week" shop assistant.

It’s thrown in as an aside. Meanwhile the assistant continues to furiously text his/her ever growing circle of twit/tweet/facebook friends on the intricacies of his/her last“big night” out.
Alternatively, well within your earshot they’re comparing a “he said, she said, I said” conversations with a fellow assistant.

Assistants of the male gender that I’ve encountered tend to be a little more subtle in their verbal subterfuge, or they take the path of least resistance by simply ignoring you and 'getting off' on their own agenda.

There must be a preferable middle road. For me a killer smile is worth a thousand words. It’s much more user friendly than this trite conversational ploy that lands like a damp squid.

The ‘sophisticated’ French keep it simple, yet open and personable, “bonjour Madam/Monsieur”. Only if you’re a ‘regular’ or a ‘familiar’, does the conversation flow beyond this introductory gesture.You are however, out of courtesy, expected to respond.

Let’s move the ‘scene’ to a Friday night, or a Monday morning. Friday night/ Monday morning, in the train, on the ferry,on the bus,or in a CBD high-rise lift.

The mantra is well established, an acceptable part of the working for a living, begrudgingly or otherwise, psychic. It’s routine and repeated ad nausea - on a Friday afternoon.... “what’s on for the weekend”, and on a Monday morning “how was your weekend?” A “none of your business” response to these stock phrase questions, would be considered, rude. An ‘over response’ i.e.responding with a graphic description of your weekend’s activities, the ‘highs’, the ‘lows’ and the ‘if only’s’, the ‘hits’, the ‘misses etc etc.would be considered to be over-kill.

Moving on to the trite, standard issue, weather related exchanges. Isn’t it hot, cold, wet etc.? When it rains the standard response of NSW’s population is “we need it”, irrespective of where the rain falls – dams, city, suburbs or rural NSW, is irrelevant.
Surely a more appropriate response would be “let’s hope that it’s falling in the catchment areas”. Irrespective of where it is falling of greatest concern is that it is fine for the weekend.

We say so very little of meaning when we speak – we are experts in the art of obfuscation. By way of conversational exchange we chatter about things that simply don’t matter.