Yeah Tom Scott did one of his linguistics videos about that, he had a word for it but some questions aren't really questions they're basically just rituals, though rephrased a different way makes them genuine questions, and when you have major dialects of the "same" language like British and American English, we use different ones. "Are you alright?" is basically a noise of greeting in Britain and an expression of genuine concern in America, while "How are you?" is the reverse.
This isnt small talk, this is a survival mechanism to figure if the person will enact violence on you or not. Optimally you want the response to be empty words, grunting, or being told to fuck off.
It really depends on the country and people's personality.
In my experience in Southern Europe people tend to love share stuff about themselves (and will easilly go into their life story) whilst in Northern Europe getting anything about them without having a long acquaintance with them is very hard if not impossible.
Apparently the Finnish are very averse to small talk (pretty much the opposite of Southern Europe).
Then there are also other variances - in Britain they'll tend to portray themselves as better than they really are feeling, in Portugal they'll tend to complain about life and things and in The Netherlands, if you do get them to open up, they'll be very matter of fact.
After language, it's maybe the hardest kind of thing to get used to when going to live in another country.
Also one of our best known sub-cultures is one in which the concept of health and safety are slurs when used outside of work. I should know I am a relatively cautious Redneck, that just means I actually keep the medkit nearby for if shit goes worng.
What annoys me with this culture is when they expect foreigners to use the same exhuberant language and they think something is wrong with you if you don't.
I find Germans have an easier time replying to things very frankly and without garnishment or humor. I can ask a German, "How are you?", and he may reply with "I'm fine" and it can be taken at face value.
Americans tend to be more, I don't know, conflict avoidant in their replies? There's more expectation of subtext, of irony, and it's not as typical to take "I'm fine" at face value.
"Can't complain" is another good one. It's often heard as, "I can't complain [because nobody would listen anyway]". Tone is important, as is environmental context. Blue collar workers at the site say this, yeah their day is going to shit. Your buddy says it over drinks, maybe he's having a neutral, normal time of life, or maybe his life is going to shit and he's giving the ironic answer to avoid diving into his real issues, while still communicating that things are not perfect.
Last week I was asked how my day was. It had been a perfectly normal, decent day, good time at work, beautiful weather, and my reply was "Life's a peach". I got back, "That bad, huh?" Yeah, the American habit of taking genuine expression and searching for a darkness under it can be tiring sometimes.
In the opposite direction, when I moved to England it took me a while to get used to compliment "inflation" over there.
For example when somebody's opinion on something is:
"interesting", it means it's shit
"ok", means it's bad or mediocre
"good" and "great", means it's average
"wonderful" and "amazing", means it's good
I once asked one of the natives how did they transmit the message that they trully believes something was a 10/10 and was explained that's done by going into details on how something is so great.
My high-school friend group adopted "it goes" from our French class ("Comment ça va?" "Ça va!", roughly meaning "How goes it?" "It goes!" being the common neutral greeting taught in French classes) and I slightly resent it being described negatively here.
Even better is, we casually drop the "Comment" and add the accent of a question instead, so it can go like : "Ça va?" "Ça va."
Note that in French we can make the meaning of it vary from roughly 'not great' to 'good' just by how enthusiastic we are. It's really only when we want to express radical emotions that we might stop using it.
(Although someone depressed might not want to express their distress and use it like the expressions in this meme..)
I often respond with: “Well, I’m still kicking and screaming.” I don’t know why. I think it got used a lot when I was growing up - someone getting dragged kicking and screaming.
Folks get tripped up by that.
For me, it means that despite the fight being hopeless, I’m still trying.
It’s been a rough week at work, and being in an environment where we are all on call and numerous people are subbing for others who are having life get in the way, a lot of people are working late and taking weekend shifts that they would have otherwise had off.
One of my college friends works with me, and I know his responses to these questions pretty well, and boy howdy have I seen him go through all of these responses in order as things got worse and worse while the director pops in and out of call to check on us and get updates on the situation.
Considering we would have had the weekend off and both of us stayed very late, things are going pretty OK, all things considered. Can’t complain too much if I’m still truckin’