Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 18: Line 134-135 (239-240)

 "Howdy, Darb! What's up and what's down?"

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The new mystery person appears to be one of Darby's peers but is it a rival or a friend?! Who can tell?! Other than a person who reads books as one continuous action and doesn't take a break after every sentence to ask stupid questions.

"What's up"
This is a thing people ask other people when they want to know what the other person is currently up to or has recently been up to or maybe even what they've been up to since they last met. Sometimes it doesn't even require an answer and it is just meant as an informal greeting. It can be answered by a smart ass friend with "The sky!"

"What's down"
This is not a formulation that I'm familiar with. This character is probably just adding it as a sort of poetic and balancing factor to the "what's up," a bit of casual fun with language. But it could also be something aeronauts say to each other when they're on the ground. "Hey, I know you're not up currently so what's going down here on the ground, my good buddy ten four roger!" "What's going down?" is another way to say "What's up?" which is kind of weird, isn't it? You would think opposites would mean something different! Maybe it's like an 80s edgelord comedian's routine. "You ever notice how white people are always all, 'What's up?' But then Black people are always all, 'What's going down?'"



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