Etiquettes And Manners:Greeting Habits

This is the second volume.

Greeting is an act of communication in which human beings(as well as other members of the animal kingdom)intentionally make their presence known to each other,to show attention to,and to suggest a type of relationship or social status between individuals or groups of people coming in contact with each other.While greeting customs are highly culture and situation specific and may change within a culture depending on social status and relationship,they exist in all known human cultures.Greetings can be expressed both audibly and physically,and often involve a combination of the two.

Greeting are often,but not always,used just prior to conversation.Some epochs and cultures have had very elaborate greeting rituals,eg;greeting a king.Secret societies have clandestine greeting rituals that allow members to recognise common membership.

By convention,formal letters in English commence with the salutation 'Dear' followed by the name or title of the recipient.If the name or title of the recipient is unknown,then it is conventional to write 'Dear Sir' or 'Dear Madam,'or where the sex of recipient is also unknown,'Dear Sir/Madam,' or 'Dear Sir or Madam' is used.In other forms of written communication(such as fax or email),or in informal messages the salutation is often absent or replaced with personal variant.

Generally,greeting could be written,verbal or gestures.The common ones often used include Ahoy,G'day,Good Morning,GoodEvening,Greetings,Hello,Hello there,Hey,Hi,Hi there,How are you?,How are you doing?,How's it going?,Howdy,welcome(to someone entering a place or group),What's up,Yo,and the likes.Click Here to learn how to say 'hello' in different countries of africa,so as to establish a friendly rapport with local people while you're travelling in Africa.

In greeting,many measures are employed depending on the particular culture.For instance,bowing(also called stooping)is the act of lowering the torso and head as a social gesture in direction to another person.It is most prominent in Asian cultures but it is also typical of nobility and aristocracy in many countries and distinctively in Europe.Sometimes the gestures may be limited to lowering head.It is especially prominent in China,Korea,India and Japan,where it may be executed standing or kneeling.Bowing can also be for apologies and gratitude,to express different emotions,humility,sincerity,remorse or deference and in various traditional arts and religious ceremonies.

Cheek kissing is a ritual or social gesture to indicate friendship,perform a greeting,to confer congratulations,to comfort someone or show respect.It does not necessarily indicate sexual or romantic interest.Cheek kissing is very common in Southern,Central and Eastern Europe,the Mediterranean,the Middle East and Latin America.It is not common in English-speaking Canada and the United States,Asia and Northern Europe.Other forms of greeting include Eskimo kissing,Fist_pound,hugs and so on.

The respect(and titles) accorded to elders in the past are slowly giving way.Africans give greetings different cultural meanings.Hugs and kisses turn in as the continent grows more impersonal.Africa seems to be losing the greeting culture speedily.

In Nigeria,many things have actually gone wrong with our greeting habits.Unlike what is obtainable in a core Yoruba society,children fail to prostrate or kneel in greeting,they offer to shake instead.Some prefer to say 'Hi' these days.Some parents with cultural pride correct their children,but many simply get it pass.

Other ethic groups are not as expressive as the Yorubas.Among the Igbos,the Ibibios,the Cross Rivers,the Edos and many other ethnic groups that dominate southern Nigeria,greeting is not as dramatic.They shake hands and then salute at a measured social distance.Unlike the Yoruba culture,a child may call an elder by name,in the south east.This is a largely christian region that embraced European education very early and is seen as the elites of Nigerian society today.

In the northern part of Nigeria,which is very Islamic,the Arabian culture of greeting thrives.Men squat or bow in greeting.But even that has largely changed over time.Just like the Yorubas,the prostrate,kneel and squat positions have been replaced with low level bows by men.

Nevertheless,the culture of elaborate greeting has not been totally eroded.Some people still take cognizance of it.In the church,regardless of ethnic group and sex,people kneel before God.Most of our young people have bad greeting habits.They expect elders to greet them and that shows the depth of the decay.Young ladies,who are supposed to be the epitome of good manners,parade the streets without any iota of humility not to talk of greeting consciousness.I respect people,mostly ladies who freely greet others without age,background and status consideration.

Greeting is not energy-sapping-it's simple!It makes way for you.It can come from an elder to a child and vice versa.Children should learn to greet elders though.Conclusively,cultivating appropriate greeting habits grants us easy access to any environment.Irrespective of our backgrounds,status and anything else,let's learn to relate freely with others by improving our greeting habits.