Answering: "What do you say?"

Question

If used as a salutation, what does "What do you say?" mean?

Is it a substitution for "how are you doing"? Perhaps some other question regarding my current state of mind? I really have no idea.

Whenever posed with this question I respond "hello", but that doesn't seem correct either.

I've tried searching for the origins of this question, and I believe it comes from "what say you", which means to ask what decision/recommendation have you arrived at.

If I were to take that meaning, I would assume to respond with some sort of remark on the current location or other obvious circumstance, such as "this is a nice location". But often times there doesn't appear to be an obvious enough circumstance, and certainly no other implied question or decision/study previously made.

How do I navigate out of that question unscathed?

Robusto · Accepted Answer

Yes, it is a familiar, colloquial expression that is used as a substitution for "How are you?" or "How are things?" or "How's it going?" or any of dozens of possible expressions.

Like any such greeting — cf. "How's it hanging?" — it is not meant to be taken as a literal request for specific information. If you are addressed in such a manner it is usually enough simply to respond that you are fine (this can be true even if you're not fine — bland, non-committal greetings such as this should not be viewed as an invitation to go into great detail about your problems).

John · Answer

It's pretty much a greeting. I live in the Southern United States and a common greeting from an older gentlemen is, "What say you there, John?"

I dunno what the hell it means, I just assume it's like saying: "What's up?", so I just say: "Same shit, different day."

Answering: "What do you say?"

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