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Kaj_Sotala comments on Handshakes, Hi, and What's New: What's Going On With Small Talk? - Less Wrong
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This might backfire, though - at least in our English class, we were taught that the only acceptable response to being asked "How do you do" is to repeat "How do you do" back.
I hope you didn't take that instruction too strictly or did you have another protocol for getting out of apparent infinite loops?
I worded my comment carefully in anticipation of this question. Note that I said that the acceptable response when being "asked" it is to "repeat it back", not "ask the same question". Clearly the protocol specifies that the same string doesn't count as a question anymore once it's sent in response to a query initiated by someone else.
This is actually true, at least in terms of what's 'proper' to say!
However, very few people know about it anymore, at least in the United States-- that's what I was alluding to when I said that "most people of my generation don't really know how to react to this." In fact, I've legitimately never heard anyone other than myself make the "correct" response there.
I'm a 30-something American, and I only know about this rule from old movies about old times (like Pollyanna, set in the early 1900s).