587 regional variations in morning greetings

Taking a break from talking about ebikes for a minute. 

This summer, I've spent time in three far flung places. Massachusetts for most of June. San Francisco for a big chunk of July. And here in Eastern Washington for the rest of it. And in each of those places, I have gone for a morning walk pretty much every day. 

In each place I have found people greet each other in the morning slightly differently. After nearly 30 years in San Francisco, I'm accustomed to saying "good morning" when I pass someone on the street in the morning. 

This is a contraction, although it's actually a little longer. The "good" actually stands for "God." "Goodbye" for example, is a shortening of "God be with ye." ("Ye" being old English for "you," not everyone's billionaire punchline.)

Okay, let me back up a second. In San Francisco, people who are accustomed to being up in the morning and greeting each other say "good morning." Plenty of people just ignore you. 

In past experience, I've found "good morning" is the common greeting in Florida as well. Lots of retirees like to get up in the morning and take a walk. This, it turns out, might have something to do with Neanderthal DNA making us morning people, but that's a lot to get into right now, plus I don't really know anything more than that. 

When I was in Massachusetts earlier this summer, I tried out "good morning" on a few people. It didn't really work well. People just sort of looked at me. 

What I found was the people who greeted me said "How ya doing?" (Which means, "How are you doing?" since we're getting specific.)

Here in our new town, where everyone pretty much knows everyone else and nobody knows us, I've been having a real hard time getting people to say hello. I've tried "good morning," that just gives you a blank stare. I've tried "hello" which also pretty much just gets someone to look at you. 

"How ya doing?" actually starts to lead to a little bit of results. 

But here's the magic sauce. Our local morning greeting is actually a contraction of "how you doing."

Here in this little western town hidden away near the Canadian border, a throwback of sorts filled with mobile homes and lower income retirees, ranchers and bubbas in big pickup trucks, the morning greeting I've noticed works the best is another contraction. 

"Howdy."

Howdy stands for the relatively formal "how do you do?"

Howdy feels a bit corny to say, like I'm putting on airs of some old cowboy, a part I have been known to enjoy playing, but there it is. That's the word.

Howdy. Or good morning, to my SF and Florida peeps. And how ya doing Mom!