What is there, what is there not

[Dennis R. Preston]

Rudy,

My favorite of these is the Polish:

Greeting: "How are things flying?"

Response: "Everything plays."

Probably also now old-fashioned.

dInIs

>My immediate reaction was the same as Allan's, that this is a calque on
>Turkish "Ne var, ne yok?", used as a common greeting among acquaintances,
>and thus pragmatically parallel to "What's up?", recently reincarnated as
>"Whassup?". I wonder how many other languages in the area use this same
>expression?
>
>However, a Turkish student of mine recently told me that this is now
>old-fashioned, and the newer "in" expression is "Ne haber?" = "What news?"
>i.e., "What's new?"
>
>
>Rudy

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Languages
740 Wells Hall A
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
Office - (517) 353-0740
Fax - (517) 432-2736