Published on 12, July, 2020
Something that has always amused me is people saying "Good Morning" to each other. Or even just "Morning" which I assume means the same thing. But can someone explain to me what it actually mean? Is it "Having a good morning?" "Have a good morning" "This is a good morning" because they all mean different things and I don't know how to answer. Is it intended as a question? I know all you're supposed to do is just answer "Good morning" back but I don't like not understanding what it means. I guess it means different things depending on who's asking, right? Because why would anything be consistent? :P and don' get me started on the ""how are you" question that usually follows. This is so confusing! I don't think you're actually supposed to answer it, I think it's meant as a prompt to ask the other person how they are. But again, never really understood. Can anyone enlighten me? I know something so trivial shouldn't bother me but I've always been baffled by this ritual.
This is very true! I have 2 and I often catch them working together putting schemes into action
Cats are enigmatic - you never know what they're planning.
I like that.
Sometimes when people ask how I am I just say "Good, thanks!" and leave it at that. On occasion people have then replied "Good thanks ....errr" back, as they're so used to hearing "Good, thanks. And you?".
I too tire of this ritual and sometimes respond "Goodthanksandyou?" to get it over with as quickly as possible (which is also my motivation for truncating as above!).
:-)
Sorry but now you've got me wondering what *non-specific* harm might be, that your cat didn't explicitly exclude from his or her wishes. Non-specific harm might be considerably more worrying than specific harm :-)
Ha that would be funny, everyone just saying Mo to each other :p I've been reading the "Guide to Earthlings" book thats been mentioned a few times in these forums and I think you could be right, it's not really meant as a greeting, more of a quick test. It's a good book actually I'm learning a lot.
I think the whole greeting would be "I wish you a good morning" which is a very priggish Victorian ritual. As with most things, it gets shortened down - maybe in a few years it will be reduced to Mo.
How are you? always baffles me too - I'm seriously ill so do they really want to know? Really? I suspect these greetings are a bit like cats blinking to each other as "I am no threat to you" or "I wish you no specific harm" and so people don't need to immediately reach for their swords.
I should point out that for years when people said "Good Morning" to me I just replied "Yes" :p this was always met with a strange look. It's a valid response in my opinion haha