Greeting

Greetings in all languages have the same purpose: to establish contact with another person, to recognize his or her existence, and to show friendliness. The formulas for greeting are very specific and usually do not carry any literal meaning. People say “Good morning” even if it is a miserable day and may reply to “How are you?” with “Fine, thanks,” even if they aren’t feeling well.The greeting is always returned, often in the same form but with different stress
People who are together every day greet one another the first time they meet each day. They do not shake hands.
When people have not seen each other for a long nme, the greeting is often enthusiastic and is usually accompanied by shaking hands among men, hugging among both men and women, and sometimes a kiss on the cheek among women.

Here are the examples of greeting. The phrases near the top of the list generally more formal than the ones near the bottom.

GREETINGS	RESPONSES
Good morning	Good morning
Good afternoon	Good afternoon
Good evening	Good evening
How nice to see you! What a pleasant surprise!	Yes, it’s been quite a while
Hello, Robert	Hello, Kathryn
How are you?	Fine, thanks. And you?
Hi, Bob	Hi, Kathy
How’ve you been?	Pretty good
What’s happening?	Not much
What’s new?	Nothing
How are you doing?	OK
How you doing?	Not bad
Long time no see	Yeah