this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah Tom Scott did one of his linguistics videos about that, he had a word for it but some questions aren't really questions they're basically just rituals, though rephrased a different way makes them genuine questions, and when you have major dialects of the "same" language like British and American English, we use different ones. "Are you alright?" is basically a noise of greeting in Britain and an expression of genuine concern in America, while "How are you?" is the reverse.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Chinese version 你吃了吗 or variations on that, although it's not used so much anymore. Literally means "have you eaten", except it doesn't really require an answer. I imagine it came up in that video, but it's a good one.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Literally means “have you eaten”, except it doesn’t really require an answer.

Grandmothers in every culture