To hate it that people say "yes" when I ask how they are.

[sweetgrape]

It's become so common place now that it seems to be the norm.
If I say to someone "how are you" or "how're you doing" or something similar they invariably answer "yes I'm good thanks" or "yes I'm fine".
What is the "yes" for? I know it might make me sound trivial and pedantic but I hate it. People didn't used to speak that way. I think Eastenders started it off and now it seems the whole world does it. AIBU?

People used to say "How do you do?" but over time that got shortened to "Howdy!"

I do think it's a bit ridiculous really.

In todays speech that would be shortened to 'S' ridic '.

It's almost as if we're developing a kind of shorthand English. Soon we all be speak like this with nev mo than two sylls wever poss.

"How are you?"

"Yeah, no, great, no, yeah."

Twat. Or Vicky Pollard.

YANBU

I don't mind language change if it's grammatically correct theycallmemellow but answering yes to to an "how are you" type question is wrong. I don't think the correct use of grammar has changed that much since 1970 neither.