Grumpy old man

[Wozzawasp]

My pet conversational hate: When someone is about to be interviewed on the radio, the interviewer says "Good morning Mr Bloggs " and Bloggs answers "Good morning John, how are you?"

Who the hell cares how he is??

[brian j john]

maybe it's a term of politeness , something you obviously have'nt got .

[Wozzawasp]

Thank you.

[jno]

it's just courtesy

[cointreau]

I agree it sounds ridiculous, as everyone already knows that they have been sitting there for some time waiting for the broadcast to begin, and have already exchanged all the courtesies. Therefore it does come across as sloppy journalistic style (and timewasting), but I think interviewers do it to make sure the interviewee is at ease, rather than launching straight into the subject. My own radio personal hate is when I've enjoyed a song and the DJ doesn't give a credit, so I don't know how to look up the band...it drives me mad!

[Peter Pedant]

No it is a ploy to put one party off.
Listen carefully next time,
as your little geriatric face screws up

Interviewer: There's is Mr Prescott on the line, one of yesterday's men. Now Mr Prescott, two jags was always too much, even a man of your size only needed one. What do you thnk of the latest reshuffle when you lost your job ?

Mr Prescott, for it is he: Good Morning John, as I said during TonyBlair last great commons performance....

Of course this converstaion is made up and impossible - the Beeb would neva be rude to a Blair-babe nor even 2 jags Prescott.

[Iggle Piggle]

In a previous job, I used to have salespeople ring me and ask "how are you" and my answer varied from "get on with it" to "do you care" to "well I woke up feeling sick" most of which recieved no response whatsoever and they would simply rant on about the latest thing they were selling.

[Wozzawasp]

Thank you Iggle Piggle. It was nice to find someone who understood what I meant!! Can't win 'em all.

[crossroads]

The only reason they do it is to waste time, it means the person doesn't have to answer as many questions.

[trevHCS]

As a slight sideline to this I wish people would stop doing this on phones such as clients. We've got one who does this every time and I know he doesn't give a whatsit, so why do people ask...!?

OK courtesy - I hate courtesy, but then I am officially in the grumpy old man status (32 is old). :-)

[Iggle Piggle]

I do wonder how much money BT make from 'hello' and 'goodbye' although only a few seconds long, they are in almost every conversation !

[mrspask]

During the recent[and continuing] bad weather.Elloquent news and weather reporters have said on several occasions ''it will be much drier today than yesterday'' when yesterday was extremely wet!! Surely it has to be at least a little bit dry yesterday for it to be ''much drier ''today!!!!!!!!!!!!!BBC and ITV take note!!

[Wozzawasp]

Ah! The English language definitely (unusually spelt correctly!) aint what it used to be.

[Paul_Rook]

what gets me is the reply they always say yes im thnaks even if when on the way in the wife called to say shes leaving and he got mugged gettin out of the car and when he was laying on the floor he had the car nicked and when he finally got into work late he was sacked .lol

[Panic Button]

What about the phrase 'How do you do?'

Shouldn't the answer be 'How do you do what?'

[Brownlow]

Ah, Wozzawasp...nailed. I hate people misspelling the word 'definitely', especially when it's on a poster, or in print. If I'm at all uncertain about the spelling of a word, I check it.

[Brownlow]

I'd forgotten what your message was about.
This 'courtesy' thing happens on phone-in programmes. Nearly every caller asks how the presenter is. They should know by the answer that was given to the last 10 callers
Maybe, they're expecting him/her to suddenly become ill!
Perfomers often ask the audience, "Are you alright?" when the previous two acts have asked the same question.
It's clearly a nervous habit...nothing else!

[whiffey]

Clive Bull was the master of this, in reverse. As a phone-in presenter (LBC) every caller without fail would go "Hi Clive, how are you ?" and instead of parroting back "I'm fine", Clive Bull would either pause pregnantly or remind the caller for the nth time that he didn't do how are you's. Eventually it became a feature of his show and callers would ask him just to wind him up. I don't know if he still does it, last I heard his show he had mellowed becoming more polite and thus less interesting.