Familiarity breeds contempt

Where on earth did it start? This bellowing out at every passing, boring, unknown, and thankfully unresponsive person on the street, in the supermarket, on the radio as talk back host, HOW ARE YOU? Over and over on the radio, every caller repeats this mindless chant. Where did just plain hello get to? How about good morning, good evening or good afternoon as a more appropriate courtesy?
Sticky beaks incorporated would have been asked to mind their own business in more sensible times. I absolutely refuse to encourage the practice of robotic over-use of trained empty questioning of strangers who should, say, give me an hour or so to fill you in. Whoever runs businesses expecting responses to such trivial mindless questions should remember the old truism ‘familiarity breeds contempt’.
Melba Morris,
Allora