Word To Use Today: wotcher.

Exactly how much of a snob are you?

Will you happily say Good morning? Or would that be too posh?

Will you say Hi, or Hey: or would that be too modern?

Are you fussy to the point that you don't even approve of Hello? (It is just about possible: the word, used as a greeting, is less than a hundred and fifty years old, and was coined by an engineer* rather than a classics scholar).

Will you say Good day? or is that too ridiculously formal (unless, of course, you're Australian)?

And how about wotcher? That manages to be out-of-date, slang, and never used in middle-class society...

So...

Are you a snob?

Go on, then, prove it: greet the next person you see with wotcher.

I'll let off the Americans amongst you saying the next word in the traditional greeting: 

Wotcher cock!

Word To Use Today: wotcher. This is Cockney (that is, east London slang) for What cheer? It was coined in the 1800s.

Actually, I do wish What cheer would come back as a greeting: it might stop everyone grumbling the whole time.

The word cheer, in the sense of a welcoming face, comes from the Greek kara, which means head.

*Thomas Edison. It was originally an exclamation of surprise at the workings (or lack of them) of his newly invented telephone.