I was in a training session today, and someone suggested that, when you ask someone how they're doing and they say "fine" what they often mean is "Feelings I'm Not Expressing."

I think this is an interesting take on the idea of not really saying what you feel, but saying what is "polite" instead.

What other instances do we do this sort of thing regularly?

When a man asks a woman how she is, and she says, "fine," we know to take cover immediately.

quote:

When a man asks a woman how she is

Most men learn soon enough to only ask that question once in their lives!

Perhaps someone else knows where this originated, but I've heard it said that one is wise to remember that "How are you?" is a greeting and not a question.

When I ask someone "how are you" I am hoping, generally, that they will actually tell me how they are. Silly of me?

quote: Perhaps someone else knows where this originated.

Don't tell your friends about your indigestion.
"How are you?" is a greeting, not a question.

Sounds like Ogden Nash, doesn't it? But it's Arthur Guiterman. Thanks for prompting me to look it up, saranita.

quote:

When a man asks a woman how she is, and she says, "fine," we know to take cover immediately

Depends on the way she says it; you men must be perceptive!

I take "how are you?" seriously, too, CW.

"Here [there] and everywhere" quoted a couplet by poet Arthur Guiterman -- and from WAAAY down deep (I'm 60+ and this came from my mid-teens) the ending of a poem ascended & surfaced in my mind:

Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf
And I don't feel so well myself.

I think this is from a Guiterman poem. I can't recall its title or how it begins -- there's something in there about mastodon tusks now being billiard balls -- but its general theme is Sic transit gloria mundi (> "The MTA will be out of service at the beginning of the week, Gloria.").

Can anyone resurrect the rest of this pome for me, and confirm (or not) its provenance?

David

For Hic:

You're welcome and thank you.
________________________________________________

For Froeschlein:

On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness
by Arthur Guiterman

The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is ferric oxide, known as rust.

The grizzly bear whose potent hug
Was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar's bust is on my shelf,
And I don't feel so well myself.

________________________________________________

For CW and Kalleh:

You obviously don't spend a lot of time with a lot of old people.

Guiterman probably read Shelley....

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

quote:

Originally posted by saranita:
Perhaps someone else knows where this originated, but I've heard it said that one is wise to remember that "How are you?" is a greeting and not a question.

I read somewhere (Damn! I hate not being able to find a quotation when I need it!) that in medieval times, 'How are you?' was not simply a greeting, but was, rather, a genuine expression of interest in the health/welfare of the other person, in view of the fact that life at that time was '...poor, nasty, brutish, and short.' (I feel better now, having fitted Hobbes in there.)

Life was for some "poor, nasty, brutish, and short". I note that Hobbes died in his 92nd year.

Yet compared to tortoises and parrots, 92 is short!

Do you suppose the cartoon chracter in "Calvin and Hobbes" was named for him?

Pretty likely. And Calvin was named for Calvin.

You mean the doom and gloom, you're pre-damned, burn heretics at the stake Calvin? Welllll, could be...

I dunno, Calvin & Hobbes seemed liked the preterite and the elect to me, chiasmatically, of course.

quote:

You obviously don't spend a lot of time with a lot of old people.

Well, not as much as I once did, but I'm still here on the board a lot! *bratty kid face*

And yes . . . according to wikipedia (and who doesn't trust THEM!?),

quote:

Named after 16th century theologian John Calvin (founder of Calvinism and a strong believer in predestination), Calvin is an impulsive, imaginative, energetic, curious, intelligent, self-centered, and often selfish six-year-old, whose last name the strip never gives.

and

quote:

Hobbes is Calvin's stuffed tiger who, from Calvin's perspective, is as alive and real as anyone in the strip. He is named after 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who had what Watterson described as "a grim view of human nature."

It is a very interesting article, actually, and explains a bit why you don't see any C&H products out there, as Watterson is very against such commercialisation. I also learned that the artist is from Chagrin Falls, OH, which is rather near some of my family. I mean, I've actually BEEN there!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Caterwauller,

CHAGRIN? and FALLS!?!?!? Ooohhhh, how utterly Calvinist!!!