I am developing a pathological hatred for the phrase, "Are you alright?"

[Traab]

Ive been watching the full Fail Army collection of videos on facebook. For those who dont know, its mainly video clips of people doing something stupid and generally crashing and burning. "Hey, those two cliffs dont look far apart! i think I will try to jump the gap!" Or, "Red lights are for sissies, im a MAYUN!" And then we watch what happens next. But either way, whenever you see a skateboarder try to grind a staircase rail and end up going crotch first down three flights of stairs, there is always someone there asking within a half second of impact, "Are you ok?!" Dangit buddy! Give the man a chance to process the new shape his body has been twisted into before you ask him that! or conversely, does it LOOK like he is ok? He fell out of a tree and hit three branches on the way down, now move, the chainsaw got held up but is still falling.

Honestly, I like fail videos, but they have to be the right kind. I find it hilarious when an idiot does something stupid and face plants over it. I DONT like it when someone was clearly seriously hurt. (A redneck fail had some guy jump off a cliff and he hit the rocks twice before landing in the water, NOT FUNNY!) Luckily those are fairly rare. Its generally the type of impact that makes you go "OOoooh!" Not like this.

[Quild]

It's just some kind of reflex. You don't just sit near the guy until he makes a full check.

It's also probably more useful than you think to check if the person can answer at all. At least by groaning something.

[Traab]

It's just some kind of reflex. You don't just sit near the guy until he makes a full check.

It's also probably more useful than you think to check if the person can answer at all. At least by groaning something.

Yeah I know, I know, and I know im probably going to do the same thing if I ever see someone hurt themselves doing something stupid. But dang man, so many, "Are you alright?"s "Well, if you would give me the chance to unfold myself from the scorpion position im stuck in and untangle myself from the wreckage of my bike and yours I would tell you! But as im still sliding down the asphalt and probably wont stop grinding layers of my skin off for another couple seconds, provisionally my answer is NO!!!!!"

[Ninja_Prawn]

But dang man, so many, "Are you alright?"s

And here I was thinking you'd just been spending too much time around Birts...

Yeah, I'd second the 'first aid instincts' explanation. Checking for a response is one of the first steps for a reason. And as a very accident-prone person myself, I don't mind being asked if I'm alright. It's an easy initial screen between "yes, it's just a cut/sting/bruise, get the first aid kit" and "no, I think it's broken/punctured, call an ambulance."

[Traab]

And here I was thinking you'd just been spending too much time around Birts...

Yeah, I'd second the 'first aid instincts' explanation. Checking for a response is one of the first steps for a reason. And as a very accident-prone person myself, I don't mind being asked if I'm alright. It's an easy initial screen between "yes, it's just a cut/sting/bruise, get the first aid kit" and "no, I think it's broken/punctured, call an ambulance."

Thats true, but you kinda need a second to really tell and so many of these videos the guy is still bouncing along the road or whatever and the onlookers are like, "Are you alright?" "Dangit! Ask me again once I stop rolling down this rock infested waterfall! At least wait for the splash!"

[SlyGuyMcFly]

And here I was thinking you'd just been spending too much time around Birts...

I bloody hate this one.The other rhetorical questions masquerading as greetings don't bother me to nearly the same degree. I'm quite capable of understanding and accepting that "how're you doing?" is essentially "hello" and that no, the person greeting me has no particular interest in my doings. "Y'awright?" though. That produces a geyser of bile and bad blood gushing from the darkest, most cynical and sarcastic pits of my mind. I'm not even sure why I find it so odious, but I always have to bite back a snide retort to that one.

[Traab]

I bloody hate this one.The other rhetorical questions masquerading as greetings don't bother me to nearly the same degree. I'm quite capable of understanding and accepting that "how're you doing?" is essentially "hello" and that no, the person greeting me has no particular interest in my doings. "Y'awright?" though. That produces a geyser of bile and bad blood gushing from the darkest, most cynical and sarcastic pits of my mind. I'm not even sure why I find it so odious, but I always have to bite back a snide retort to that one.

Im guessing its because you never have to deal with this.

[Excession]

I like the fails that end with someone shouting "Fail army!". It also shows just how successful that channel is.

[DataNinja]

It's also probably more useful than you think to check if the person can answer at all. At least by groaning something.

That's how I usually use the phrase, reflexively. If someone doesn't answer in any way, then there's probably a problem.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I'm not even sure why I find it so odious, but I always have to bite back a snide retort to that one.

It's because the implication is that the person doing the greeting is assuming that there's a decent chance of any given person being 'not alright' at any given time. It's very negative.

"How are you doing?" is much better because its default position is neutral. You could be doing "great" or "fantastic", whereas "hi, you alright?" offers a 'maximum' of "yeah, I'm fine."

I should note that this is rarely an issue in the UK, where no one would claim to be doing "fantastic", even if they'd just won the lottery.

[Traab]

It's because the implication is that the person doing the greeting is assuming that there's a decent chance of any given person being 'not alright' at any given time. It's very negative.

"How are you doing?" is much better because its default position is neutral. You could be doing "great" or "fantastic", whereas "hi, you alright?" offers a 'maximum' of "yeah, I'm fine."

I should note that this is rarely an issue in the UK, where no one would claim to be doing "fantastic", even if they'd just won the lottery.

Yeah you wierdos would probably say you are supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or something. Ive seen the movies.

[tomandtish]

It's because the implication is that the person doing the greeting is assuming that there's a decent chance of any given person being 'not alright' at any given time. It's very negative.

"How are you doing?" is much better because its default position is neutral. You could be doing "great" or "fantastic", whereas "hi, you alright?" offers a 'maximum' of "yeah, I'm fine."

I should note that this is rarely an issue in the UK, where no one would claim to be doing "fantastic", even if they'd just won the lottery.

Except in a lot of cases it has become so default it is rote with no thought behind it. We did an experiment on this in a sociology class.

Wait for someone who is walking by you to say "how are you?", "How's it going?", or any variation. (by walking by you, we mean someone you weren't already engaged in conversation with and weren't otherwise planning on engaging in conversation with).

Respond with "Awful. And you?".

76.4% of the 2000 people we did this with responded as though we'd given a positive response. "That's good, me too", "I'm good too", some words to those effect.

Even more interesting, of those whom made a response like that, 62.4% never seemed to realize that they had responded in such a matter, as they never corrected their initial response.

So 1528 people made a default response before processing fully what was said, and of those 1528, 954 of them either never realized they did it or never bothered to correct it.