Is "What's up" the new "Hello?" Recently when my son calls me on the phone, he says, "What's up, Mom?" I can't help but say, "Honey, you called me. What's up with you?" My daughter says that when she calls people, she, too, says "What's up?" Is this a Chicago oddity, or is this happening elsewhere as well?

I think "what's up?" is a pretty common greeting around here. I don't think it's really new, though probably more prevalent. I remember someone years ago often responding to that greeting with "The price of rice."

I rarely hear "Hello," anymore, except as a telephone greeting. "What's happnin'? and "How's it goin'? are still around, though. I never hear "How do you do?," though I do hear "How are you (today)?," mostly from store clerks. The problem with "How are you?" is some people actually tell you.

Wasn't "wassup" a catch phrase in a Dudweiser or some other chemical fizz advertisement?

Don't get me wrong; I find "what's up" to be common enough. I just haven't heard of it used as the first greeting on the phone towards someone. I've seen "what's up" used when for example you'd say, "Hello" or "Hi" or something similar, and then you'd say "What's up?" or "How's it going?" or "What's happening?" or whatever.

I must be wrong, though.

It goes back at least to the Bugs Bunny cartoons which began in 1940. "Ehhhhh.... what's up, Doc?" was Bugs Bunny's greeting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugs_Bunny

Nowadays the greeting has mutated into one word: "wassup?".

Also "what up", as in the name of Michael Steele's blog.

I've also heard it as a further abbreviation of "wassup", simply as "'sup?".

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
I've also heard it as a further abbreviation of "wassup", simply as "'sup?".

That reminds me of how I often hear the (already irritating) phrase "Know what I mean, like" reduced to "nameen lk".

When someone says, "know what I mean?" I always say, "No, what do you mean?" I think in Cyberlanguage I'm known as a troll.

I first noticed "What's up," or "whassup" as a casual greeting from my son when he was in college almost 15 years ago. I think it's that generation--are they Gen X? Anyway, it's superior to the conversation starter we used to get every time our office was taken to lunch by a salesman from a printing company we used.

He'd wait until we'd all been served, and then say, "So, what's new and exciting with you?" I always wanted to say, "Not this lunch!"

Wordmatic

You had used lunch? Ewwwww!!! That might lead to new and excreting!

My retort: "My schwanz and the rent are up--with no hope of getting them down." Guaranteed convo stopper.