Issue #189: Red light, green light

In Alenka Zupančič’s Odd One In (2008), she opens the chapter “The Ego and the It” with a humorous reflection on a polite question:

In many languages there is a splendid and constantly used form of polite question. In English the question is: How’s it going? The greatness of this formula resides in the fact that the usual answer (Very well, thank you) le…