Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 09:43:06 -0500

From: Tom Creswell creswell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CROWN.NET

Subject: Re: Damned if you do, damned if you don't



Allan,



Thank you for taking a professional stance and trying to make clear to the

many who have expressed outrage at what they presume to be the motivation

and "meaning" of ritual greetings that such phatic utterances express only

non-hostile acknowledgement

of the existence/presence of theperson to whom they are addressed.



Tom Creswell

-----Original Message-----

From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

To: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU

Date: Thursday, October 23, 1997 12:11 PM

Subject: Damned if you do, damned if you don't





If a linguist doing fieldwork in another language were to express anger at

the ritual greetings used in that language, we would be shocked at such

unprofessional behavior. And at such ignorance of the functions of various

speech acts. We know that every utterance is not meant to convey a literal

meaning.



Yet when the linguists on this list encounter ritual greetings in our own

language - they get furious. Either they are furious because others use

ritual greetings, or they are furious because others don't.



So in present-day American English, perhaps the function of ritual

greetings

is to mutually antagonize the interlocutors.



- Allan Metcalf