Talk:what's up

I'm not sure how best to rein in all the spellings here. Also, I left out the "He really knows what's up." sense, which shouldn't have a question mark, but probably should be here. Also, I'm not 100% sure "what's up with" should get its own entry. We could analyze "what's up" as equivalent to "what's going on" or "what's happening", both of which combine with with the same way.

Probably the main entry should be "what's up", with "what's up?" redirecting. Not sure about the rest. -dmh 18:58, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

German translation:

In translations to be checked, it currently gives: 'was geht' as informal and 'wie gehts' as formal. However, the formal form of this phrase is 'Wie geht es dir' among peers and 'Wie geht es Ihnen' to a superior. 'wie gehts' is the informal and 'was geht' is even more informal.

French translation

I am highly skeptical with the French translation "que se passe-t-il ?" for "how are you?"

I don't know any Frenchman or Frenchwoman, including me, who would interpret that phrase this way, and it would be awkward or even embarrassing to use that to introduce oneself because most people would understand "could you tell me what is happening [in front of us] [right now]?", like there is an ongoing brawl and details are inquired. Therefore, under normal conditions, the answer is likely to be "Rien du tout." ("Nothing."), which may not be what you expect when you ask "how are you?"

However, I am from Paris and I cannot tell for any other regional manner of speaking.

Inaccurate definition?

The definition which reads "How are you?; how are you feeling?" seems inaccurate to me. If "what's up?" = "How are you?" for example, that would mean this should make sense:

• A: What's up?
• B: Good and you?

But it doesn't make sense. Thoughts?

--Bluesoju (talk) 11:37, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Note the definition reads: similar, not same as. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:26, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

And I notice now that is the revised version. Looks fine now anyway. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:27, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

RFV discussion: December 2020–January 2021

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what's up

RFV sense:

(idiomatic, colloquial) What do you need?; How can I help you?

Can I ask you something? – Sure, what's up?

This was previously discussed at Wiktionary:Tea_room#what's_up, where @Ultimateria supported keeping "How can I help you". With every respect to Ultimateria, I still just cannot see it myself, even allowing for the fact that it is possibly an AmE usage, so not very familiar to me. In the given usage example, I see "How can I help you?" as being implied by the circumstances, but not actually a meaning of "What's up?". I would be happier with some further confirmation that "What's up?" can really in itself mean "How can I help you?". The existence of "What do you need?" as a truly distinct meaning, and not also just an implication of "What's the matter / wrong / happening?" senses in the circumstances also seems tenuous to me. Please comment on both parts of the definition. Mihia (talk) 10:19, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I interpret it, like what’s the story? or what’s going on?, as a simple request for more information – or, more precisely, in terms of conversation analysis, as granting the request to speak. In reply to Can I ask you something?, it implies an openness to being helpful (if possible and not too inconvenient), but that implication is IMO situational; it stems from the context, not from the inherent meaning of the response to the question. In this situation, the response Shoot! would mean the same.  --Lambiam 15:39, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the usex given supports the sense "how can I help"; it's definitely more like "what's going on?" / ~"what's happening?". You could as well say "Sure, what do you need?" I see that that is the first half of the gloss here, but I still think it's mroe sensible to parse this as "what's going on?" and maybe expand sense 2 with that phrase. - -sche (discuss) 19:55, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

RFV-failed Kiwima (talk) 20:35, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Usage

It might be a good idea to include a standard response to "what's up" under "Usage notes". Wikiuser13 (talk) 21:37, 31 October 2021 (UTC)