Howzit is a common informal greeting in
South African English. Both sylables have roughly equal stress, and it comes out sounding like
how sit, though in some regional variations (e.g. from
Cape Town the first vowel sound is lengthened into a drawl, and it comes out sounding more like
haaasit)
The word may be derived from the Afrikaans greeting Hoe gaan it? which is equivalent to how are you doing? but is literally translated as How is it going?. This literal translation would then have been shortened to How is it and finally Howzit
No, I am not making this up.
orac says: I have to wonder about your Afrikaans etomology for howzit - A common greeting in
Ireland is very similiar -
Howzitgoing? - which I think we can safely assume to be free of
Afrikaaner influence. don't forget the
French expression "
Ca Va?" means the same