I’ve heard it explained that “hey” used to be more of an urgent way to get someone’s attention, rather than a casual “hello” like it is now, so it sounded rude to some older folks.
Teachers in 2023: “NOOO you can’t end your sentences with ‘fr fr nocap skibidi’ those aren’t even real words!”
2033:
2033: “Why would you say any of that corny old shit? You sloopy old frond!”
Seriously. The “Fr fr no cap” is closer to our generations “Swag yolo”. Or the past generations “Tubular”
This is a bitchin observation.
I think it’s a pretty good example of something that totally lost all meaning and got beat into the ground, rather than getting worked into some individual lexicon or accent, and having a specific kind of role.
Totally passing observation on top of that, but I think, it’s probably much easier for that to happen to specific references, than for that to happen to actual novel uses of language.
Do we have a RemindMe bot for Lemmy yet? I want to re-read this prophecy in 10 years
A bit late but
@RemindMe@programming.dev 10 years
When I was a waiter, there was no shortage of boomers getting genuinely upset with me saying “No problem” as a reply to “thanks”.
I prefer to say no problem over you’re welcome cuz it always (to me) sounds sarcastic/disingenuous when I say you’re welcome
It’s like this:
You have a boss. A wrinkled plus-sized brown business jacket of a man whose idea of “cutting costs” is turning the air conditioner off. If he caught on fire, you wouldn’t piss on him to put him out. How do you address him? “Good morning Mr. Perkins, how are you doing today?”
You’ve got a war buddy. You met at boot camp, you served in the same company, he splinted your leg in the field, you’re his kids’ godfather. You’d kill and die for this man. How do you address him? “Ah god not this fucking asshole again.”
Official formal polite language like “Thank you” and “You’re welcome” is the pair of nitrile gloves I put on to handle the really noxious shit that comes my way. “w’thanks man” and “no problem” means I’m willing to handle you with my bare skin.
“No problem” also carries the implication that the favor was taken and done without ill will, where “you’re welcome” carries one of superiority
I like to say no problemo. It suggests that the favour was done with a touch of Mexican
Ugggggh I went through this with my (boomer) boss for years until she finally accepted it lmao. Then it was, “WORRIES, CaptFeather! WORRIES!” as a joke every time I said it lol
I had no idea that it’s considered improper. Online gaming is like
thx
np
It’s a stretch for kids to write anything completely online. We call it Kid Pidgin.
Kidgin
Pidgin btw
Nobody expects online gaming to be a bastion of proper grammar.
People type in abbreviations when gaming mainly due to lack of time though… Much better to focus on the game than typing more than necessary to convey a simple message in those cases.
I only ever did that when typing via controller. If I had a keyboard I used full sentences but quickly. Sometimes the speed meant lack of proofreading though and weird things have been said.
As an Aussie I don’t understand how people get confused by ‘no worries’ .
Inmates lost all manners smh
Nah the prison guards are too uptight.
I’m an American and I say that all the time. I’m not sure how I picked it up.
There’s a little Aussie inside of everyone.
Bonzer!
Lol did they specifically want “you’re welcome?”
Absolutely. I could understand it if it was a formal dining place I suppose. But it was a fucking Applebee’s in a 20k population town with one other restaurant lmao
Applebees is Sit down McDonalds with better food. If one of your seating option is at the fake wood bar its not fine dining.
A family member of mine briefly worked at Applebee’s. Literally everything is microwaved. I happened to get a Fettuccine Alfredo there and have one of the Marie Calendars frozen Fettuccine Alfredo meals (>$2 at the store) in the same week and realized once its plated you literally could not tell the two apart. Same quality, same quantity, but the store bought meal costs 1/5 the price and is somehow ready faster
It was probably the finest dining in town though.
Imagine repying “danke”, which is thanks in German
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“No problem” takes “You’re welcome” and implies that it was of no inconvenience to you either. But I understand that older generations find it important that service workers be most humbly at their service, and adhere to a strict social etiquette just short of “Yes, m’lord” and “Shall I suck upon your dick, sir?”
“You’re welcome” is more appropriate in a professional setting, but if you’re getting your jimmies in a rustle over someone saying “No problem” to you instead, you’re a bit of an assfuck.
If you are a service worker at a restaurant, then that is literally your job, to serve.
I love it when I order a sandwich at my local banh mi place near my office and you can see the cashier literally eye roll every customer that orders. They can’t even look you in the eye…
If you want people to be happy to be serving you then demand that they are paid more.
Otherwise buy your sandwich without any delusions of grandeur and fuck off.
Min wage is $15/hr
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I don’t think either phrase is impolite. Good manners are a made up thing. If someone said ‘thanks’ to me and I said ‘tiddle dee dee’ I’m not being rude, just a bit weird, nobody’s honour has been questioned, I haven’t said anything that could be taken as an offence.
It’s literally meanings of words strung together being described.
You are welcome = you are welcome to my servitude
No problem = I don’t mind doing this thing for you
Oh you. 🤦♀️
And why do people need to pander to you specifically? Cant people be themselves?
Those are narcissistic traits.
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only one way to interpret “you’re welcome”
This is just wrong. Tone matters just as much with “you’re welcome” as it does with “no problem”. Language is fluid like that, and it’s completely arbitrary to elevate one of these expressions over the other when both are in common usage.
Also, you’re deliberately misrepresenting what “no problem” means, in regards to “that’s the only reason you complied”. Nobody says it that way, and I don’t believe that you think they do.
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Your entire argument is based in semantics.
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If someone says you’re welcome, you know they are a corporate drone and management wants them to say that to avoid certain people making a scene. Why’s it insincere to say no problem? In the same vein, they only said you’re welcome because they are complying too.
There’s no issues with saying no problem unless you want there to be. Those are cool workplaces.
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And so can you’re welcome. So why does it matter which phrase if both can be misconstrued?
Language matters everywhere, who mentioned anything about an office building?
And the only issue is you taking offense, there’s plenty of people who have no issues with no problem, but take offense from you’re welcome. Why is everything about you….?
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Maybe they should just die, that way they don’t have to face a world they clearly can’t deal with.
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Callous and bigoted but you are hung up on if people say you’re welcome?
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You can tell a lot about a person by what unrelated ideas they introduce.
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The implication is that a problem was assumed until “no problem” was stated.
“No problem” is absolutely low key rude.
To me, ‘No problem’ is just short for something like “oh don’t worry about it; it was really no problem at all and I’m happy to help”.
Colloquialisms are fun like that.
I feel that kind of interpretation is more region specific. Specifically, West Coast?
Midwest, actually!
The context in which the listener is expected to comprehend communication is important if the speaker hopes for the intended message to actually be communicated.
If the speaker chooses to ignore how the listener is expected to perceive their communication then I’d say that actual communication was never truly their intent… seems more like linguistic masturbation to me.
Bullshit.
If you infer something from something that’s on you.
There is a difference, but it’s not one of inherent meaning, it’s more or less a generational culture difference.
I’ll place this here and pre-emptively say that assisting your understanding was… no problem https://youtu.be/eGnH0KAXhCw?si=sVBI__SCJ3mQkkWo
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They do not? All words are invented and meanings morph over time.
Not an important difference, no.
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Your feelings are valid and real. But as a society, the new standard is that there’s no difference. If you decide to catch up, it will lead to much fewer hurt emotions.
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Just because you’re confident in your feelings and opinion doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t hear it. To never get external validation is a lonely horrible existence.
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It was “yo” for me. Any time I used it some old shit would complain. My mom called it n-word speak. Me and my mom don’t talk.
I use it daily, mostly out of spite.
She wasn’t ok with yo but the n word was ok? Hahaha wtf old people be crazy
My mom was about 35 when she said that. Went to services every weekend.
In the '90s I had a snap back that I decorated with stick on jewels (beadazzled) and on the back I wrote “YO!” in sparkly silver puffy paint. I thought I was so cool in that hat.
It was the 90s, so you were. These days, not so much.
I say yo, but only to feel cool
I say yo but only bcoz its a call in Japanese
“Hej,” pronounced “hey” is Swedish for “hello.” Also “Hej hej” these days if you want to be more casual. It seemed weird to me at first, like “Hej mormor,” for “Hello, grandmother,” seemed informal, but if I said, “God afton,” (good afternoon) my cousins said I sounded like a government issued language tape.
Probably not a super accurate representation of Swedish language, but it always brings a smile to my face to hear Brigitte’s “hej hej” and other voicelines in Overwatch
From what I remember Brigitte’s voice is quite good, maybe a slight Disney princess tint to the voice, that I find a bit misfiting, but that’s about it. Her Swedish however isn’t bad at all.
Her Swedish however isn’t bad at all.
Probably because the VA is Swedish. As with all characters in Overwatch they use native speakers. So English is actually their secondary language.
Yeah I know, if I read the IMDB page right she was also the Swedish voice of Kim Possible. Which made me even more confused over the Disney princess tint in her voice, but I might not remember Kim’s voice to good, or she managed to not have the tint back then.
In the nineties, i had an old guy respond “‘Hey’ is the first stage of horse shit.”. I still use it to this day.
that’s so much better. I’m 100% incorporating that into my daily phrases
Was there really a cause behind that? I always thought it was people just being silly.
Both, really. Some people enjoyed it, some people wanted it to stop.
It could also have been just that - an old joke that everyone liked responding with when they had the chance.
That is how I always perceived it. I can’t even imagine someone saying that with a straight face as a correcting rebuke.
It was what passed for a meme back in the 1950s. There was a comic alphabet that was performed as a turn in the music halls. It started off with “A for horses, B for Mutton, C for miles” and so on.
Your link says 1936.
It does, and if there is a recorded version at that date you can bet it had been floating around for longer than that. Reason I said 50’s is because that was when my parent’s generation were in their young adulthood which if you think about it is where all these catchphrases really set up home in your brain. The other thing, now I think on it, is that it wasn’t said as a response to ‘Hey’ as a greeting it was always said to stop the somewhat Cockney way of indicating you hadn’t heard. What they wanted you to say was ‘Pardon?’ or even ‘I beg your pardon?’, they didn’t like ‘What?’ all that much and couldn’t abide ‘Eh?’ or ‘Ay?’ So it it was usually more of that same ‘Don’t talk to your elders like that’ bullshit that all the baby boomers rebelled against.
Same, and I still say it to little kids because it’s silly and confuses them for a second. “Hay is for horses. Aren’t you glad you’re a dog?”
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Honestly it seems like most people have assumed that the way things are now is how they’ll always be. I’m not sure why everyone seems to think this but I’ve noticed it everywhere with almost everyone.
There’s this sense that everyone seems dug in and rooted and acting like their entire world isn’t subject to change on a whim.
It’s really fuckin weird.
Life gets more turbulent as you age so you just try to hold the fuck on.
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And we don’t give a fuck about you thinking we sound like a fifth grader.
Your existence is meaningless and has no influence on the world, let alone our lives, fr fr no cap.
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someone on reddit got pissed at me for not writing a ‘coherent’ comment, ie because i didn’t use enough capital letters. so anachronistic, don’t you know the style now old man?
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Indeed, every elder phone should have a shortcut to the Urban Dictionary.
Many don’t agree with words that have been accepted into Oxford or other dictionaries. So the sarcasm falls flat.
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None of what we speak today is “proper English.” Languages are constantly evolving.
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Also, the kids they were telling off in the early nineties are pushing fifty now and won’t take any shit from an octogenarian.
“Hay is for horses” is such a dope saying. I loved it, horses are dope.
Exactly. I thought it was just a silly joke to open up conversation.
In Germany we have something similar. Our word for Hey, “Hai” actually has two meanings. Obviously it means “Hey” but also “Shark”
So it was common to respond with either “Where” or the more famous “Fish”
If you went for Fish it turned into a silly game of trying to compound the word as much as possible in responses to each other. Usually going like “Hey” “Fish” “Fin” “Soup”. Sharkfish fin soup
Horses agree:
(tap to view animation)
My grandfather used to say that, but it was more of in a dad joke way rather than a ‘you shouldn’t say that’ way.
I say it to my kids all the time.
I still say this to my kids because they don’t understand why and it’s hilarious.
Dadbro, checking in. Hey will always be for horses.
It’s better for cows.
Piggies would eat it, but they don’t know how.
My 3 year old daughter has started saying “Hey!” Right before sharing a brilliant idea like “let’s have ice cream for breakfast!” So I’ve started cutting her off with “Hay is for horses” and she just ignores me
Sup?
“Sup is for meal times!”
Bonus: sup means vulture in Czech. :-D
I fought in the hey/hay wars in my early childhood. Weost many good soldiers, but their sacrifice was not in vain.
My old man used to say (in a sing-song voice):
Hay is for horses
Sometimes cows
Chickens would eat it
But they don’t know how
im old but you are most definitely older than i
‘Sup
'Sup with the whack Playstation, 'sup? Huh?
What?
My grandpa would do this to me when I was a kid, but it was never in like a rude way. It was just one of the funny ways we would mess with each other.
In my language, “Hi!” sounds like “Shark!”, so sometimes I have to suppress the urge to say “is a fish”, because Gen Xs I knew used to say it all the time.
Germany? We have “Hai” “Fish” “Flosse” “Suppe” as a back and forth thing. Sharkfish fin soup.
Always fun to find someone who knows the full game
Haj
