Inane chatter, all of it. Checks their boxes yet mostly ignored.

How often do people ask how you are and mean it? If often, you know good people.

Reply with Thank you but I have made other arrangements

If it's an email, you don't need to reply to the useless guff. And at least we don't write things like "I beg to remain, sir, your faithful servant..."

It's the latest version of 'your call is important to us'.
You don't hear that much anymore, now it's 'we are experiencing higher than normal call levels'.
what is needed is a chat thingy 2 page response to 'I hope you are well' as a response from a hypochondriac, to paste on to any reply. That would stop them asking.

I think of it as social padding, sort of like we usually smile at a person when we greet them. Personally I find it a bit pointless but others seem to put great store by it so I use it when I think the other person will find it rude if I don't.

Scoakat - I think it's probably still worse in the US than over here (although we are catching up fast). Every time I hear "Have a nice day!" (which is rarely heard over here), I think that what they really mean is "F*** off and die!"

Debster - it took me a while to work that one out as I initially thought it was a reply to the first bit not the latter. Still, if they didn't get it either, it would put them in the same position as a reader of their bolx.

Anonymous, please rest assured that I don't reply to these phrases in such communications, it's just that I would love to have a really pithy reply. And yes, now you mention it, I guess it could be said that every age seems to have its unnecessary verbiage.

Mr BW - chances of me ever signing up to AI? Less than zero. And can you imagine the havoc if you pasted that reply into some of the eg banking chat things out there?

Caroline - oh, is that what it's all about?! I only ever ask people how they are when I actually want to know, or care.

Perhaps I should try harder to be socially acceptable?!!

I agree, it's social padding, because some people believe that an email saying just "you can't have this because that" is unnecessarily terse

But Ian, in that situation you can start with, "Thank you for your email/letter/phone call..." I just think that asking after the health of someone you have never met and never will is intrusive, and probably upsetting to many recipients who won't necessarily be well, or in a good place.

A few years ago, when I used to need to ring the bank a lot, when they said, "Is there anything else I can help you with?" I always used to deliberately misconstrue and list all the outstanding jobs I had. For example, "Well, there's a pile of washing to iron, unloading the dishwasher, cleaning out the hens..." Now I rarely ring, but when I do, I've noted that they now say, "Is there anything else, banking related, that I can help you with?" A small victory I think :)