Nice to meet you. (Then what?)
When you meet someone new, do you ask “What do you do?” What’s your most likely conversation starter? Apparently there are common openers depending on where you live. For example, whereas in DC “What do you do?” might get the response “I work on the Hill” or the name of a law firm, the same question in Burlington, Vermont might garner the response “Well, I ski…”
I think that’s fascinating! There’s a linguist who is looking into this and the study is being covered in joint by NPR and The Atlantic. (Listen to the five minute overview on Marketplace, or read about it here.)
Now this is conjecture on my part, but I think if someone here answered “Well, I ski…” to that question, it would be because they didn’t like the question and wanted to put you in your place—not because they didn’t get the intention, which would have been: ‘what do you do for a living?’
(By the way, you can apparently ask someone in Burlington “How did you get here?” since very few are native to the town; but you shouldn’t start with that in Alaska. The answer might be sketchy.)
Apparently, many of us are most likely to ask “Where do you live?” in order to start conversation (and assess the person).
So tell me, What’s your most common conversation starter? What question do you most like/despise to have people ask you first?
And here are a few good links for your weekend…
