The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-12-11
VARIOUS MODES OF GREETING
Characteristic Phrases Used in salu
tations.
(London Globe.)

or the Italian says, How do you
stand?" which may be referred either
to stateliness or lazineSs. The French
can, careful OF department. asks,
How do you carry yourselfE" The
Dutchn1an, fond Of the table, salutes
you with May you eat a hearty din
ner;" while the Englishman. the man
OF action, says, How do you do?'
More markedly characteristic are some
OF the equivalent phrases used among
non-European peoples. The peasant of
southern China, for instance, asks,
tenderly, Have you eaten you rice?"
and at Cairo they inquire, sympatheti-
cally, How do you sweat?"
Our English, How do you do?" is
direct translation of the medieval
French form of greeting, Comment lie
faitesvos?" and seems to have come
into common use toward the end of
the seventeenth century. Curieusly
enough, its general acceptance appears
to have conceded with the dying out
OF the old mode of greeting ladies'
which was emphatically known as
salutlng, and which seems to modern
ideas so extraordinarily familiar and
intimate-that is, by kissing English
men are sometimes inclined to regard
with rather superior air the more
efusive methods of salutation, especi-
ally between men, common on the con-
tinent; but for centuries England was
the land Of kisses. When a man greeted
woman, whether it was for the first
or the hundredth time he kissed her.
Chaucer alludes to the custom as ex-
listing in his day. In the "Sompnour' s
Tale, the Frere, when the mistress Of
the house enters the room where he
and her husband are sitting together
Ariseth up full curtisly.
And hire embraceth in his arms narwe,
And kisseth hire swete, and chirketh as a
SparWe
With his lppes.
Two hundred years later, Erasmus,
in one of his graphic letters from
England, wrote very Approximately of
the custom. IF you go any place,
he tells his correspondent, with ref
erence to English ladies, you are re-
ceived with a kiss by all; if you de-
part on a journey. you are dismissed
with kiss; you return, kisses are eX-
changed. They come to visit you. a
kiss the first thing; they leave you,
you kiss them all around. Do they
meet you anywhere, kisses in album
dance" 1t was no wonder that Eras-
mus told his friend that if he had once
had experience of the custom-"on my
honor, you would wish not to reside
here for ten years only, but for life"
This mode of salutation continued in
enteenth century and into the eigh-
tenth; but occasionally there were
protests. Bunyan condemned It Sc
verely in his Grace Astounding, and
other serious writers followed his lead.
Like other fashions. it died out gradu-
ally, first among the quality" as O.
ciety people were then called in town,
and later among country folk. In the
Spectator for Dec. 5, I'LL, there
is an amusing letter from a country
gentleman greatly perturbed by the
behavior of young exquisite from
London The worthy young squire
lived on his own estate was hospitable,
and, according to his own account, was
ever reckOned among the ladies the
best company in the world Il never
came in public . he continued, but
saluted them, though in great as
sembIies. all around. where It was seen
how genteelly I avoided hampering my
spurs in their petticOats, while / moved
among them; and, on the other hand,
how prettily they curtsied and re-
ceived me, standing in proper rows,
and advancing as fast IS they satR
their elders, or their bettsrs. dispatched
by me-" The good man evidently
kissed every lady in the ROOM But
a change came over his neighbCrs and
friends, he complains, by reason of
the advent Of a courier Or town gen.
tleman." This beau, fresh from the
fashionable circles If LOndOh instead
of kissing the ladies in the hearty old
English way, simply bowed profoundly
to each in turn, and with such grace
and assurance was this done that he
won all hearts, and kissing at once went
out of fashion. There IS 40 Young
gentlewoman," laments the poor squire.
within several miles of this place that
has been kissed ever since his first ap-
oil hi
is clear that, in the days o. Queen
Anne, the once universal mode of
saluting a lady was no longer fash
ioEable in town, and was nearing its
end in the country.
The excessively familiar salutation
was succeeded by bows and curtsies Of
great dignity and alarming procVndity;
and these again became less anG less
ceremonious until the whirlisig of time
has brought back the reign ot fannl-
iarity in another way, in the some
what casual and offhand How do you
do?" which, nine times out nf ten,
implies no interest whatever in the
person addressed but is simply a
meaningless formula of greeting. The
still more meaningless Good morn
ing" is of later date than How do
you do?" The earlier forms, which
long preceded the latter phrase, were
Good morn and Good morrow"
which both date from the fourteenth
century. The latter is no longer in
use in actual conversation though
poets have a weakness for it.
The speckled thrush
Good-mOrrow gave from brake and brush,
says Scott, in the Lady of the Lake,
and Longfellow, in ''Evangeline," de-
scribing the gathering of the villagers
of Acadian Grandpre, says:
from the young folk
Made the air lighter
Another old elIipticaI form of greet
ing, now long obsolete, was Good time
of day In Richard III Hastings
salutes the Duke of Gloucester with
Good time of day unto my gracious
lord but this was too cumbrous a
form Of salutation to make much head
way.
Our modern How do you do?" is
found too long by many hurried speak
ers and gets abbreviated into How
do do and the like absurdities. Other
variants are such phrases as How are
your" and How goes it2v The latter
is a liberal equivalent of the German
form of How do you do?" and also
of the common French salutation,
Comment ca vatil." In some rural
parts of England How goes it?'' is
shortened into How goa?' Another
salutation phrase which is now re-
garded as colloquial, if not vulgar. but
was formerly in respectable literary
use, is What cheer?' Here Master.
what eheere?" cries the boatswain in
the opening scene of THE Tempest