How are you doing?

In reading Slouching Towards Kalamazoo by the verbose Peter DeVries, I've been forced to the dictionary more than once - per page, at times. DeVries peppers his prose with alliterations, linguistic wordplay, difficult words no one ever speaks in public (no one I know, anyway), and long winded spiels that you've got to really take out some effort to follow.

Sometimes, he forces me into slamming my head against the wall.

"It was to the mind's instinctive alacrity in screening out the unendurable that must be laid my persisting view of this as all happening to someone else, say the recently shed suitor who gave incense and batik spreads, and who had been sent packing to Nepal with his walking papers and his mantra, to say nothing of his belief that he would return as something else, like a water ouzel or a dung beetle. She corrected that impression in no uncertain terms."

What a jerk, right? This book is filled with stuff like that.

However, digging through the dictionary to understand just what the hell he's talking about has increased my ammunition for words to use when people ask me 'How are you doing?'.

Typically, most people will just say 'good' or 'alright', answering the question as if it wasn't a question at all (which it typically isn't), but simply an acknowledgement of your presence.

Well, no more. 'How Are You Doing' needs a proper answer, or at least one that'll catch the asker off guard.

Here are some options other than good:

Extant - adj - still in existance
Copacetic - adj - fine; completely satisfactory; OK.
Alacritous - adj - lively; eager

and my favorite:

Antiphonal - adj - responsive: containing or using responses

These are all words DeVries use in one rather annoying monologue in one chapter of the book. I'm telling you, the guy is a dick.

My point is: when someone says something like "How's it going?" or "What's up?" pay attention to the person asking you the question. Typically, they aren't really asking you a question at all. So catch them off guard, by actually answering with how it is you're really feeling, or what actually is up with you these days. Or throw one of these big stupid words at them, and watch their reaction.

I bet they weren't expecting an answer, anyway.


Got any other responses that might make you sound like the smug fuckface you know you can be?